Wednesday, January 16, 2013

LEAVES OF TABLE LEAVES

It's going to be without notice now or has been for longer than the cracked window tells how the outside world outside is filling up with ink dark ink closing in on the sound of feet or paws rubbing against a rug laid with the darker hues of what feet or paws track into a rug from the outside world outside that is filling up with ink dark ink closing in on the sound of feet or paws rubbing against the floor of a nightmare that won't dissolve.  Better off without socks with socks off worse off with them with the odor got used got used to walking along through the stench of feet.  It was the itching the bloody itching not bloody anymore that crusted up and that sticks to the threads sticking to the inside scratching stuck to the inside trying to pull away trying to pull away the threads that stick to the crust to the itching bloody itching not bloody anymore that crusted up and that sticks to the threads sticking to the inside scratching stuck to the inside.

"Are you going to keep up with me?"
"Keep up?  I thought I was leading the way."
"Well, yes, you were until I decided to turn around."
"You're still facing me."
"I am in the process."
"The process of what?  Turning around?"
"No.  The process of deciding.  The process of my decision."
"Don't be turning your back on me!" he shouted as he cut the air with the exclamation mark he brandished like a baseball bat the aluminum kind.
"I thought you might prefer me expediting the process."
"Well, not so fast.  You don't want your decision to be premature."
"You're arranging it so you can keep leading the way."
"In actuality. . ."
"Here we go again."
"Here I go again with what?"
"With your actuality.  That usually means another serious deterioration in air quality."
"I can certainly add that embellishment.  In actuality, I'm getting fed up with leading the way."
"That's because you don't know what it is, do you?"
"It's because I know it too well.  There comes a time in a man's life -"
"And a woman's."
"And a woman's life when you'd rather let someone else have a chance to experience covering the same familiar ground for a change until it rotates back to your turn and you spend most of your turn emptier and emptier waiting for someone else to come smack face to face with the trudging and then it isn't too long before their reaction doesn't have the effect it had the first time it's never the same after that when you share your tickets to monotony."
"Give us a dirge."
"You want a dirge?"
"Give us a dirge a swampish dirge."
"There once was a man -"
"Not one of those."
"There once was a woman -"
"Somewhat better, but not one of those."
"The dead rabbit lay there all night on the ice cold driveway of the washed-up magician's residence.  Its severed foot -"
"That is so contrived."
"Tail.  I was going to say its severed tail could be found by the mailbox."
"That's even more contrived."
"I could have said its severed tail was in the mailbox and I didn't say that.  I'm experimenting."
"All of this is a bad experiment."
"There were these people who took me in and I was taken in all right."
"Found a bottle of medication.  Must've dropped out of someone's coat pocket when they were putting air in their tires."
"They used extension cords.  You just might think twice every time you make comments about the way I walk."
"I congratulate you on the way you walk."
"Don't you think that's a bit over the top?  A bit useless and insincere?"
"Insincere, yes, but not useless."
"2 out of 3 ain't bad."
"When were you taken in?"
"Once or twice, I think."
"Twice?  You let the same people treat you like shit?"
"They looked like they were getting on older and seasoned seasoned wine and talked so different all about plans and I was not to be excluded someone had a plan for my life."
"I was twisting that medicine bottle and the plastic was grinding and grinding and finally when I got it open instead of that cotton ball, I was expecting to find a severed rabbit tail."
"And you found a cotton ball."
"Just the pills."
"Just the pills."
"Just the pills."

Slowing the steps not to understand them any better for being rescheduled when you try to say it again another chance and it won't come out the way it sounded in your head in your head where it won't come out the way it sounded in your head in your head where it won't come out slowing slowing down the steps not to understand them any better for being rescheduled when you try to say it again another chance and it won't come out the way it sounded in your head in your head where it won't come out the way it sounds in your head slowing down in your head slowing down slowing down the steps not to understand them any better.


- Max Stoltenberg

Monday, January 7, 2013

UNNECESSARY

Those questions come around again like that nauseous feeling that was believed to have faded away that gets the body stumbling stumbling over itself.  Here they are again spreading out through a growing hole in the crotch of a pair of pants drifting up to the nostrils reminders of the curled up wet cigarette ruined in a spot on the pavement by someone's urine a pissy attitude spreading out those questions there they are again spreading out through a growing hole in the crotch of a pair of pants drifting and drifting up to the nostrils reminders of thoughts wrapped up inside the skull like a rotted garden hose stinking back out those questions into mutterings those questions there they are again spreading out through a growing hole in the crotch of a pair of pants drifting up to the nostrils reminders of talking out of one's ass.

unnecessary for a beginning
unnecessary for an end
only an on and on
loquacious and laconic
too early don't wait
too late don't bother

eyelids lifted overhead
lashes sucked into pupils
black holes
what's the matter?
what's the matter?

unnecessary for a beginning
unnecessary for an end
only an on and on

"What's the matter?"
"What's the matter?"
"I asked you first."
"You asked me first."
"And?"
"And what?"
"Never mind.  Something's obviously the matter."
"Obviously."
"I said never mind."
"Then never your mind."

Tap the glass.  They said not to do it.  Not to this glass but other glass the one they said not to tap on even though everyone else would tap on it for a joke most laughed except for can't remember her name started with an R or a J was it no think she had a small r somewhere towards the end or perhaps a t or two always appreciated a couple of t's she must have taken them with her somewhere out from behind the glass that was certainly not for tapping until they told you to leave not meant to be part of a team suppose so got out from behind the glass not for tapping even thought everyone else would.  Tap the glass at the end of the street that ends at the hills those mounds where they dump things tap the glass.  They said not to do it.

"What's the matter?"
"What's the matter?"
"There you go again now get up."
"Can you wait until I finish throwing up?"
"You're dry heaving."
"Look you missed it."
"Missed what?  A chunk?"
"No.  It was a bit of string.  You missed it floating off that way," and she indicated with her soiled left hand pointing down the street.
"Looked more like a feather.  Did you find a dead bird again that the cats missed?"
"You weren't even looking.  You just want me to get up again so you can try kicking me in the shins this time.  I used to think you did it to watch how I fall.  I used to think your hope revolved around the possibility of me landing on my face.  Land on those crusty lips of yours you're thinking to yourself.  Kiss the sidewalk with those thinning lips of yours you tell yourself as you wander around when you can't find me for a couple of days when I manage some nasty peace for myself accompanied only by the sounds of what's trying to escape from my own body.  It was a piece of string you fuckhead."
"From what?  A dress that isn't here right now?  It's sorry to say that it couldn't join us?  Gone somewhere in a half made-up story of yours half-baked in that dead nest of filthy hair where any interest in you contrived enough to drag you along until you start yammering and yammering to drown out that he won't be coming he won't be coming."
"Think it was from my underwear."
"I thought you gave up on trying to scrounge up any.  Get up."
"You're such a do-it-yourself guy.  Take hold of it.  It's at the end of your race.  Claim your shitty prize.  Drink deep.  Dig in.  And you can spread your word across the desert that grows with each fistful you take each clump of baldness you make in the strands left limp in the wake of the trichotillomania of reality."

Out from behind the glass that was certainly not for tapping until they told you to leave not meant to be part of a team suppose so got out from behind the glass not for tapping even thought everyone else would.  Tap the glass at the end of the street that ends at the hills those mounds where they dump things tap the glass.  They said not to do it.  Not meant to be said not to do it got out from behind the glass until they told you to leave not meant to be out from behind the glass tap the glass not meant to be.


- Max Stoltenberg