Saturday, August 31, 2013

RICE CLUMPS

A day ahead a day behind what are we watching when is this happening not what we're watching what we're doing what are we doing chew a little more before choking say about 2 or 3 make it 2 why bother with 1 pull the hedges closer in bend them to cover all the places we ran through in our hurry such a hurry to be grown up what are we doing chew a little more before choking say about 2 or 3 make it 2 why bother with 1 pull the hedges closer in bend them to cover all the places we ran through in our hurry such a hurry to be grown up what are we doing when is this happening a day ahead a day behind what are we watching?

"Yeah?"
"What are you saying yeah to?"
"It's kind of like that."
"It's kind of like what?"
"That's not what I meant to say."
"What did you mean to say?"
"I thought it was something else I was reacting to."
"Squirrel?"
"No, bug.  It always comes down to some form of bug."
"Then what were you initially reacting to?"
"I forgot."
"Never mind."
"That's right continue doing what comes naturally to you."
"Especially when you are such an exemplar of the alternative."
"Just one of those dead end positions with extra adhesive for clinging to the underbelly of my repertoire."
"Someone had some time to think up a response."
"It only became clear what to say once I blew the dust off of our conversation."

Put it back put it back to that part where they're trying their efforts their energy and remind yourself of what that was like before the shrugging of shoulders and that hazy light and the look on her face looking out the window at that hazy light showering her with anticipation of rain that only trickles or doesn't come at all and she observes from a growing distance all their trying their efforts their energy and her headache grows with every thought of her opportunities to teach and her cautioning and her timing and her tone and how it all gets shrugged away into screams that manage to echo on the surface skin deep that'll never happen again after the last time it happened before the shrugging of shoulders that seem to have always been there back there put back there put it back put it back to that part if you want if you want to pretend that it wasn't always put back there.

"I spend more of my time lately watching the dogs meandering about.  I see them their mouths and it looks like they're munching on something and I ask myself did I actually have something left that I took my eyes off of for them to scoop up something I didn't know I still had or thought I put it somewhere they couldn't get it or I'm just being self-absorbed they could have grabbed somebody else's shit and I think about going over to them and reminding them and I remember that they end up calling me something and to never mind that's where that comes from so you know and I think maybe I'm not so self-absorbed it's about the few puzzles I managed to save and I'm not sure if I have that one last one if I still have it not so sure it didn't have that many pieces lots of dogs though."
"I was going to take another crack at it."
"At the pile of crap in the living room?"
"You mean the stack of bodies?"
"No not that one.  That's why we stopped calling it the living room."
"At least I did."
"You want to take a crack at the pile of crap in the bedroom?"
"And I thought I was the only one who had trouble with terminology."
"It's just that the list gets so large it begins to eat into the main bulk of the front part."
"The front part?"
"You know the beginning."
"The beginning?"
"Why stop there?  Those lists take the middle and the ending as well.  Might as well they make lists of endings.  Endings after endings."
"Since you put it that way that's what I was going to take a crack at.  I thought what about it's about a prison and among the population they discover one of them plays a musical instrument."
"That's what they have bands for."
"That's not what I meant to say.  It's about a prison and among the population they discover one of them builds things."
"That's what they have construction crews for."
"That's not what I meant to say.  It's about a prison and among the population they discover one of them uses anesthesia."
"That's what they have hospitals for."
"That's not what I meant to say."


- Max Stoltenberg


Saturday, August 24, 2013

BLEAK CORTEX

Back to the mirror 
Back away from the mirror
Back into the mirror
Back against the mirror
Against the wall
Between the wall and the mirror
Between the mirror and the backing 
on the back of the mirror

Inactive record
Mirror on mirror
glass grey licking
regressing into holes
in the faces in the background

ground interlude 
stay down
get up
put together a response
hang it up
nearest hole
is furthest from the mind

Have you heard?  Have you heard the one about the realtor who showed the couple a home and took a call on her cellphone and stepped outside leaving the two to look around until it was around time for the sun to go down the light to disappear the electricity was turned off a foreclosed space have you heard the realtor?  are they close by or far away?  have you heard?  have you heard the one about the young woman who went into the kitchen another end of a day left out too long to cook another cut to dress up and take a chance let simmer to stand to cool into a dim upset in the failing light have you heard?  Have you heard the one about the realtor who showed the couple she showed them?

"That's probably why it disappeared."
"The light or her?"
"That's probably why it dropped off the listing for a while until they did what they had to and put it back on."
"Until they did something or didn't do something."
"Did you have time to get around to the shopping today?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"I just do.  Or need I say your time and how it gets eaten by the piranhas of responsibility are important to me?"
"The needless to say with their expressions that sink below the surface and rear their sagging heads again because they did what they had to do to cram them into whatever latest purpose they came up with."
"Did you get my zinc oxide?"
"You mean your Boudreaux's butt paste?"
"Yes, that, my degraded seamstress."
"No, I did not."
"No?  Why not?"
"Did you write it down on the fridge?"
"Thought I did.  Guess not."
"Degraded seamstress?"
"Fuck!  What was that I bumped into?"
"Don't expect it to be the power button of some abandoned entertainment center with tenebrous music refilling the room."
"I don't.  Circumstances always manage to be a little more than what I've lowered them to so it can blandly slink along the middle of the road and not tumble off into wrapping things up into a dark extinction." 

Take it and stick it into the stomach stir it until the clouds settle into the branches of the trees leaves are pushed down towards the Earth below emptiness bulges out as streets tighten their grip stabbing with glass windows shattering into eyes filling with notes intercepted and passed from sneer to sneer hammered into capital letters and thrown over the fence to be whipped by the violence of traffic. If if you can if you still can take it and stick it into the stomach stir it until the clouds settle into the branches of the trees leaves are pushed down towards the Earth below.

"Did you take your pm dosage?"
"Not yet.  I left my water in the car."
"I just don't want you to miss another pill.  That'll make 4 out of 7 this week."
"4 out of 7.  Enough to win a playoff and keep a depression on medium flame."
"Remember that time you were telling me that scary story when we were around that fire?"
"I didn't get to finish telling it because that was the last occasion you let me fix dinner."
"We never did redo the left side of the house."
"That's what we've been trying to move out of you know.  I still see smoke curling about."
"You do not.  Those are just little dust storms."
"What are those things scattered on the floor?"
"Charred contact paper probably."
"Not at our house - in this room.  I keep kicking them around with my shoes.  And what room is this?"
"Are you not wearing socks with your shoes?  You know how they cut the backs of your heels."
"I ran out of socks.  I haven't taken the bag down to the laundromat."
"I think this is or was either the game room or some unfinished art room."
"Someone's projecting their procrastination."
"Where is she?  Does she sound nearby to you or has she wandered off into the backyard or maybe across the street to talk to the neighbors to warn them about us?"
"Will you stop?  Just quiet down so we can listen for someone talking on their cellphone."
"For all this time?  For hours?"
"She is a talker.  Now listen for someone talking to someone else."
"It'll probably turn out to be someone talking to someone else next door or maybe it'll just be the sound of me talking to you because there is no one next door anymore or across the street or just me talking to myself because you've gotten sick of me and left me in this room alone all alone."
"I would never leave you.  I couldn't find my way out."
"That's the best reason you've got?"
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry, too."
"And I'm still sorry."
"What is love?"
"I know I haven't said it since no that was when I thought of saying it and only thought it.  That was when you walked into the sliding door and you thought it was open."
"Bent the frames of my glasses.  What is love?"
"Love is two tongues reaching for each other in the dark."
"You never got to finish that scary story."
"Scary story?  It was some true crime I read."
"Did you ever sell that?"
"Never could."
"That's too bad."
"Tossed it in the blue bin next to the bookcase."


- Max Stoltenberg

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

HALF TO DEATH

Half the distance
Half the baking instructions
Half the moon
Turning the other cheek
As the world rotates again
Comes around to another day
of the same shit pouched between
your ass and gum

Half to death
Who said it was helpful 
Who cut the plug 
Allowing the airs out of her face
Half the marked up way to the halfway point
Dismissal adjourned
Until enough talking past each other
Misery scuffs company floors
Hallways and their fading light bulbs
Where the dragging of feet
Crushed under the pressure
a proactive initiation for bloody toes

Brain blinking stars fall
by your eyes thoughts burn out
with dying sparks plunging
half the distance to the ground
covered in the same shit
comes around to another day
as the world rotates again
landing on the next losing slice of the wheel

Pulling up pants half way
to the mid-section
never recovering 
guts retreating into caves of wasted nerves
Unable to obscure the exposed half-life
decaying adventures
breaking up into jobs
fractals of meaningless vision
lulled into expectations
vainly scattering bacteria


- Max Stoltenberg






Tuesday, August 13, 2013

SHIRT ON THE BARBEQUE

Sky the double-edged razor 
hugs faces with stubble raising questions
uprooting space with nicks and cuts 
heat insults the back of the neck
clouds manufacture stillness
stranded under feet 
odor for a towel undone
into holes looking upon nowhere

Backs of office chairs
reclining nooses stand up straight
across a thunderous sweeping off the table
amusing for no one
but parts of bodies that fall away
delaying for what now
it'll swing they will swing
until they fall away
and until then


Nurse recites something she saw in real life deader than a phony connection dial again wrong number no it was the right number and now you hung up and calling back has been put on the back-burner until the back-burner has been hooked up behind the building where they the ones who came by and carrying something blunt broke the glass and had to insist on carrying on something blunt broke the glass and had to insist they just might get out they just might get in they just might get by the ones who came by and carrying something blunt broke the glass and had to insist that the nurse recite something she saw in real life deader than a phony connection dial again wrong number no it was the right number and now you hung up and calling back has been put on the back-burner until the back-burner has been put on the back-burner hooked up behind the building where they the ones who came by and carrying something blunt broke the glass and had to insist on carrying on something blunt broke the glass and had to insist they just might get out they just might get in they just might get by the ones who came by and carrying something blunt broke the glass and had to insist that the nurse recite something she saw in real life deader than a phony connection.

"Why does it look like that?"
"What did you do to it?"
"You mean how did it get like this?"
"What happened?"
"I was in with the assistant maintenance coordinator and he dropped his nail-gun on my right foot."
"I thought you were asking me about your nose."
"I'm getting to that."
"Oh, does it come next after the nail-gun to the foot?"
"Actually, it comes before."
"Before?"
"I start with the most recent incident and work my way back."
"Use whatever works."
"That's the thing, though.  It doesn't always work."
"I heard there was a sandwich on the roof."
"And this would be a demonstration of which one of your vast array of quirks?"
"This is me hopping off the boardwalk of a conversation when the other person is experiencing a breakdown in their approach."
"Seems more like a breakdown in my withdrawal."
"And how did it get like that?"
"What kind of sandwich was it?"

Let sleeping bags lie
have the whispering from inside them
tell all they want
that another told them all they wanted
and the wind molds 
what cracks them up
into bits of wet sadness
only shadow cast on the dry ground

"And how did your breakdown in your withdrawal get like that?"
"It must have been when I was taking a piss and thought about what she was thinking and my insecurities that used to provide a nice attenuated echo to her chamber-like ensemble of brooding had deformed into an extra layer of her chafing one of her rear speakers that could no longer be rearranged or rewired but had to be disposed of."
"Is that before or after she dumped you?"
"I don't remember.  All I can bring to mind is that while I was thinking this I had pissed on a great deal of the toilet seat and any potential for internalizing anything was lost in cleaning my own mess.  I stopped standing up after that."
"I still thought you were asking me about your nose."
"Tell me a story."
"Did I tell you the one about the magician who tried to resist the temptation to reveal the secrets of his tricks and archived them?"
"Is this the one where the magician gave up magic and became an archivist?"
"You have heard that one.  Then I don't have any new ones unless you want to hear one I haven't told in a while."
"Start with a more recent one and work your way back."
"It can only get better."
"Not always."
"They still haven't refilled the breath tape and trail mix machine."

Let sleeping bags lie
have the whispering from inside them
tell all they want
that another told them all they wanted
and the wind molds 
what cracks them up
into bits of wet sadness
only shadow cast on the dry ground


- Max Stoltenberg