Thursday, November 14, 2013

HALTING LINES

Meaning meaning what meaning is for meaning rushing from the Sun slowing down crawling under the darkness the Moon is hovering like a bulb for heads to bow underneath avoiding smacking against the dim light of muted discourse must not say it must not say how upset it all makes all of it feel meaning meaning what meaning is for meaning rushing from the Sun slowing down crawling under the darkness the Moon is hovering like a bulb for heads to bow underneath avoiding smacking against the dim light of muted discourse must not say it must not say how upset it all makes all of it feel those lines on the side those lines look like a bird made out of bent neighborhoods made out of lines thick with ruined water put this hand around the neck of that cup emptied of people their blood coloring the walls between sides where the grumbling mixes in the metal hall that rings with the shrillness of life twisting nipples turning down the volume as the train passes alongside the lines of the track quickly coming to a halt in the dirt.

When did the city stop making noise?
When did the city stop making silence?
When did the shit that flows in its veins
stop and start again
to the rhythm of ulterior motives
stop and start again 
stop and start again
stop
and start 
again

Nuance was his name changed from something in the past don't exactly know how long ago Nuance took up the cause of so much nothing to be concerned about elevators stop on every floor there is between buildings the trees flat inside the pages of wind what happened when did it come about that Nuance was his name changed from her name his name changed her name pinching lips despising all the doors in her miserable life he and he and he and he kept showing up go away not you not her not her not not not tying one on nothing to be concerned about elevators and their buttons to open eyes on another day another floor another level to interpret when it was the weight of the top falling through on its way to where she was showing him when things fell through her name pinching lips despising all the doors in her miserable life he and he and he and he kept showing up go away.

Move your mouth just might hear something like no you don't have to open your mouth don't want this frustration getting on that tongue of yours tried to learn watched a couple of mouths in my time this time more like less like it is more like less like and meaning meaning what meaning is for meaning rushing from the Sun slowing down crawling under the darkness the Moon is hovering like a bulb for heads to bow underneath avoiding smacking against the dim light of muted discourse suck it up suck up the tears and snot high back up behind the eyes where all that is seen is the absence of nothing to be concerned about where the desert is being expanded in the backyard of your eyes dry dry eyes.

Open up.
That's what I've been told.
Don't miss out when now is the time of your readiness.
So you have informed me.
Me?  This is that rare occasion the opportunity has presented itself.
Not really.  You've tried to talk me into it about 6 or 7 times.
That can't be.
Actually it was more like 8 or 9 times.
You are confusing me with the other guy.
The one with the jacked up skin condition under his right eye?
The other other guy the one with the bike with both tires deflated.
You mean the twit with the bike up his ass.
He's pretending to ride the bike.
It's up his ass.
I don't know what to say to that really.  You'd think with all the clutter that you'd reach a point in your life where you'd finally have enough of drawing blanks in your mind.  
If he wasn't dead, I'd tell him to go fuck himself.
It's all the lost interest I tell you.  You get tired of the conversations with yourself when they end up just being rehearsals for manslaughter.  Is that any way to try to break one's leash?  You're better off dropping your snout into the dirt and watch your chain slide down the pole of activity and existence for a stalemate.  
The key word is mate until she told me to open up and tried to get me to choke on the rest of the world.
Mine gave up on me and rightly so.  She would place those hands of hers on this face of mine the one with the cracks chiseled deep with obstinacy and she had lost interest long ago in openings long ago.  She was vainly trying to lower my head away from the glare of the lights in the sky and space and buildings and machines and see the shadows she and I cast on the ground and the spike sticking out of the Earth and how for all its swaying it comes back to the center with all my struggling.  Those hands of hers.  The key word for me is stale.  Life only amounts to what gets into and crawls out of cabinets.
I think you're confusing me and her with someone else.
I wouldn't doubt it.

Rushing from the Sun slowing down crawling under the darkness the Moon is hovering like a bulb for heads to bow underneath avoiding smacking against the dim light of muted discourse must not say it must not say how upset it all makes all of it feel those lines on the side those lines look like a bird made out of bent neighborhoods made out of lines thick with ruined water put this hand around the neck of that cup emptied of people.


- Max Stoltenberg

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

DISSOLUTION

That tooth has been detaching a little more each day each breath seems to not lift it away but squeeze it on each side has been synchronizing its efforts to detach that tooth a little more each day each breath seems to loosen the knot of things that were thought to belong inside that head ever have an inkling is it is that it that inkling an inkling ever have an inkling of a head falling away down a hole in the floor in the ground outside of an out of business place that used to sell something that was useful once to not quite so many and that's why it was thought not so useful and worth getting worn away by time and the air and no one around except those that might show up and out of curiosity slathered in bitterness accelerate its demise and in the back where detachments happen enlisted for occurring in spite of books the vertebrae cracked from humorless days pages collapsed in by the law of brute force weakness trapped under the feet of erasers well maybe further behind all of that dying light informed of another dance it has missed is where that head has gotten off to just to be alone and be falling away down a hole in the floor in the basement in the wall in the closet in the planet outside the one that has invaded that head that has or used to have that tooth that has been detaching a little more each day each breath seems to not lift it away but squeeze it on each side has been synchronizing its efforts to detach that tooth a little more each day each breath seems to loosen the knot of things that were thought to belong inside that head.

It'll never come back.
What'll never come back.
Something I'm supposed to act upon.
Act upon what?
A stage it's only a stage I'm going I have been going through.
If it's a stage that you have been going through then why did you say it'll never come back?
Because hamburgers used to be edible.
Now now you've ejected yourself from the vehicle and you're tumbling about back there and I'm the one who will be asked the questions due to there being no one else to ask since the only thing they've been asked is to leave.  
Have I come to a stand still after all my tumbling about?
I'll get back to you on that.
Do I break any ice?
Are you kidding?  You used to crack it with your mouth until you were filled with nothing but blanks in your sentences trying not to count trying not to measure and then you got interested again only when it was no longer fashionable to warrant anything resembling a study and don't think this is the time for cutting me off just because the word eludes me I'll get there eventually studious that was it a studious 
Manner?  
No.
Not a studious manner?
I said no.
A studious attitude demeanor a studious posture perhaps or a siding.
A studious siding?
For the house.  
That's ridiculous.
All along and up the side bring it right up to the kitchen window.
You're doing this on purpose.
If you had a kitchen window.
On purpose to make me lose my train of thought.
If you had a kitchen.
Make me miss the next train of thought that is running late obviously.
If you had a house.
Make me stay over night.
Over night?
No more trains until the morning.  I don't remember when they start exactly.
Stay where?
In the terminal.
It's terminal all right.  If you had a terminal then you could have a place to stay so you could leave and never come back and then you could have it said of you he'll never come back or actually those stains were self-generated and not the work of other people throwing dirt and human waste at him at least not predominantly I don't have the percentage for quick reference at the moment.

Don't you worry
We're leaving now right now
We're going away
So you have enough food
You were right
We should have let you know
This wasn't planned
Sorry we forgot
forgot to ask
remembering hides so quickly
in the space between
open and closed doors

Keep them 
just like that
dark enough
not to be seen
where the parts 
of the desert mountain
dragged in under exploring feet
will not be rediscovered

You were right
We should have let you know
This wasn't planned
Or even if it was
Would you still give us
Those looks
You're giving us now
Right now don't worry
We're leaving now right now
taking our grimy forgetfulness
in order for clean tiles
of remembering 
to lock the door behind us

Where did you get that from?
From a kid who told his uncle that he had committed it to memory after a girl had given it to him printed on a sheet of paper that looked like it had fallen out of from somewhere.
And how did you happen to come about meeting this kid?
It has something to do with the girl who was either in his class or went to another school and she suddenly moved away one day and he stayed and he stayed and when he first encountered her at this park that had been shut down and become overgrown and he had insisted on playing something different from her and they argued and she suggested they take turns playing each other's game of pretend and she let him go first and they played some adventure where he was a knight rescuing her from some monster half dragon and half pig even though he liked pigs and she liked dragons and then they played her game where they were in school and she was the teacher and he was the student and he complained the entire time until she gave up and told him a story about how earlier that day in school she noticed a group of kids making fun of a girl who was pinching her fat and playing with it.  He declared how angry this made him that kids would make fun of someone for being fat.  And the girl replied that they were making fun of her for a worse reason and when he asked what worse reason she answered for being herself.  He then tried to coax her into playing another adventure where this time the monster was a third bear a third horse a third zebra and a third duck.  After correcting him on his 4/3 leviathan she said she had to get home and then began running stopped turned around and said he had stepped in dog shit and did he want her to make him a quesadilla.
Is this the same girl who had nowhere to go and would go to where she could watch others come and go?
Maybe.  My recollection goes in and out.
Do the hills look any closer?
I can't tell if those are the hills or the mounds at the mine.
Let's just keep walking we might make it to the end of the shopping plaza this time.
No, it's too late.  Facing this way again.  We'll have to go back in and pretend to shop.
We'll take turns.


- Max Stoltenberg