Monday, March 31, 2014

THE SMOTHERED GRIM

Pull up the discomfort by scum layer after scum layer just one more time just to catch a glimpse of a patch of color of a shape of an ending of a beginning it starts with an itch it starts with a silence which one it is depends on when you run out of alcohol not a drop pull up the discomfort by the scum layer which has its followers threads trail off tangling with the shoelaces trailing off from the hems of his pants pull up pull up the discomfort by scum layer after scum layer just one more time to catch a glimpse of color of a shape of an ending of a beginning it starts with an itch it starts with a silence which one it is depends on when you run out of alcohol not a drop.

It was the doctor who threw you out along with the violin that had been missing a string and the bow well the bow didn't have the rosin and fuck that wasn't going back for anything anyway as all this cycled up and down the escalator in his mind that churned while coming across bottles with a few sprinkles in their bottoms sizzling in the Sun letting them run onto the tongue felt like the drawing of blood from the taste buds divided one's preferences in half nothing numbed instead was awakened again to the misery of it all.

"Do you want to buy an escalator?"
"Let me guess the one in your head?"
"How do you know that?"
"About the one in your head?"
"No the one at the mall."
"The one where the woman-?"
"With the misspelled tattoo? How did you know that?"
"I didn't know she had a misspelled tattoo. But thanks for telling me."
"Shit. I should have waited to see what you would have said."
"That's not easy for you."
"How do you know that?"
"You just demonstrated it for me."
"How did you know about the woman at the mall?"
"What the hell is that? You haven't even been able to find any food to eat."
"Just the natural causes of my death that is taking too long to get here. How do you know I haven't been able to find any food to eat?"
"And then this is when you wish you had a piece of tape to wrap and unwrap around your left index finger and instead you settle for picking on the cuticle of your right thumb and then that inevitably leads to chewing on it."
"You make my habits sound like the course of some illness."
"You're doing it right now."

Lips segmented and hibernating
for all the seasons
eyes clouded within
practicing those scenes
between addresses and returned malaise

Lips rolling in the dust
earthworms cracking
eyes peel off membranes
of focus
blurring roles
over time coordinates and stale bread

"What about the woman at the mall?"
"You tell me you seem to got wind of it and everything else."
"I certainly got wind of you. Yeesh, when are you going to change?"
"Look around and tell me where I'm going to find anything in this barren ashtray? The only change I will be able to muster is the stages of decay ahead of me. Now what about her?"
"Her?"
"The woman at the mall."
"She got run over by an asshole in a sports car and they were able to connect him to her."
"You mean besides metal to flesh."
"Phone records."
"Are you trying to feed me the line of communication digging deeper than physical penetration?"
"You never could find a replacement G string for your violin."
"No I couldn't and it was the D string by the way."
"You had trouble coming up with the cash to get it out of the pawn shop."
"That and the pawn shop and the rest of the town are gone."
"When you ask me to do things outside my purview I am bound to overlook a thing or two."
"And I thought you understood how the other half of the escalator lives."
"Let the one who is without a multiple personality be the first to throw pocket sand."
"Ever since her death it's the only way I could reproduce."
"You made her up."
"All the more reason."
"Just like the reason you gave for heading in this direction?"
"On fourth thought, you made her up."
"Now that you mention it I did."
"I just made that up."
"And I made you up."
"Not one of your best ideas."
"What can I say? I'm tired tired of moving in this direction or that direction until I dream and she reappears out of reach and I awake and she vanishes. I do not envy her qualities because I know I gave them to her. I envy her non-existence."
"And until that decay reaches fruition you'll both continue to be clogged in the sewer of your thought stream."
"Your thumb is bleeding."
"It is your thumb that is doing the bleeding."
"My blood looks different than yours."
"How is it different?"
"It isn't as diseased looking as yours."
"I want to be more diseased than you."
"Oh yeah. Give me your thumb."
"Leave me alone."
"There I got some."
"Where? I don't see it."
"Here on the back of my hand."
"It probably won't even take."
"How long does it take to download?"
"That's not how it works."
"Probably all fucking night."
"It'll lag like crazy and I know how much you hate the lag."
"I thought you said that's not how it works."
"You'll wake up in the morning and find out it froze in the night."
"Tell us about mom and dad."
"Not that again."
"Tell us once more and I won't ask again."
"You say that every time."
"I know and you tell us about mom and dad."
"Fuck you man."
"Don't do that. Don't ruin the ending."
"Whatever, you go to mom with your homework because one of the questions doesn't make any sense. You read the question to her and she has that puzzled look on her face because it really doesn't make any sense. And she says to ask dad and he tries to figure out what he thinks they meant to say and mom even though she's cooking she's been listening to dad and all his rearranging and rewording and then she shouts skip it because it doesn't make any sense fuck 'em!"
"I wish we had really done that."
"What? Skipped the whole coming into being thing?"
"That, too, but that we had actually listened to mom."
"I wish mom had actually said that."
"You're making that up."
"I wish there actually was a mom and a dad."
"Don't do that. You've ruined it enough."
"Ruined what? This? Before the barren ashtray the warehouse. All there ever was was the warehouse."
"I got to drive the forklift."
"You tell yourself that."

It was the doctor who threw you out along with the violin that had been missing a string and the bow well the bow didn't have the rosin and fuck that wasn't going back for anything anyway as all this cycled up and down the escalator in his mind that churned while coming across bottles with a few sprinkles in their bottoms sizzling in the Sun letting them run onto the tongue felt like the drawing of blood from the taste buds divided one's preferences in half nothing numbed instead was awakened again to the misery of it all.


- Max Stoltenberg




Wednesday, March 26, 2014

BRITTLE INVOICES

The black box in the corner with its sharp fulminations in the corner the black box still not giving not sending not uttering a what was that for the life that sent its sparse bubbles to the surface stiff with rot.  The blood is banging against the knuckles where fingers are interwoven by both hands behind lifted eyebrows that take note of both hands knitted together on the back of the neck palms are backing up into your armpits those armpits that provide the ink for questions especially the ones having to do with how we do know anything I mean how do I know anything I don't mean anything by that not a letter not an email maybe just the one deleted but not from my mind at least not yet thought it was now that I realize it is still there in my knuckles where the blood is banging against the knuckles where fingers are interwoven by both hands behind lifted eyebrows that take note of both hands knitted together on the back of the neck palms are backing up into your armpits how do I know now I know as I keep walking along the sidewalk that disappears into the rocks and the dirt and the occasional dogshit dried in the heat listening to the CD with sweaty headphones until the fence could be made out and then the disc would be popped out and thrown over the fence into the graveyard and it would smack into a headstone as I keep walking a sidewalk reappears they do that keep walking turn a corner or go back as they all involve that keep walking as I keep walking.

And that's not how it happened.  The garage was dark and there were two men asking questions and the black box saw it and it still slipped my mind to mention it the air the breathing keeps me pressed against the Earth even as I slip constantly attempting my deliberate accidents the fucked up klutz of expression and filling up space folded with so much intent upon an eruption of coughing what activity inside and outside the tent meeting draped over the hospital bed watching someone else sitting behind the see through plastic door with the zipper zipped shut so I couldn't get them out of that side of my mirror.

And that's not how it happened.  As it always continued it continued with the sound the imagined sound of a rodent to usher in the next moment next series of moments leading to the dead body on the concrete lying there no sign of blood as the dead body was there between us silence skewered by a nose for chit chat sniffing around other people's spontaneous punctuation marks in their routines.  Never been all that good with the grammar of expectation and disappointment.

"I want to show you something," she said as she led me behind the house that looked like a house from the front and from the back looked like the back of someone's head with their brain ripped out.  "Perhaps I shouldn't," she said as she stopped walking and looked around and avoided my eyes the ones that saw her age tangled in her mouth divided into extra decades than previously thought.  And she started walking again quickly untying her hair and letting it down as she walked on swiftly away leaving.  The more I glimpsed at her gray-blonde hair moving about the more my knees locked and unlocked and locked fumbling about the inside of a car door letting them go on ahead never catch up to the blood banging against the knuckles where fingers are interwoven by both hands behind lifted eyebrows that take note of both hands knitted together on the back of the neck palms are backing up into you armpits how do I know now I know as I keep walking along the sidewalk that disappears into the rocks and the dirt and the occasional dogshit. "She was going," she said. Turned toward the evaporating half-finished decorations and he replied, "She is going."  She said, "She was going to tell you something." Watched her not look back and continue over a small hill that led down into more empty lots and chair legs and wheels sprinkled about. He coughed and growled, "She was going to show me something." "Stop talking to yourself and listen," she said as some dirt blew into the corners of his eyes. "And listen to myself instead I suppose. That hasn't worked out very well," he said as he sneezed at nothing. The few times he wasn't interrupted by his voices he had heard something in his chest and acted and it usually resulted in prison trying to get out of a bed made of various papers wood I thought they were lacquered trying to get out and not smear any more vomit around on himself than I had to ending up with a head of bloody hair smashed against a wall had to go and do that as well couldn't let me finish combing the streaks out couldn't. "Are you done with your explaining? Can I go on with what she was going to tell you?" she said. I was silent except for this. She went on, "She was going to tell you about the man she saw who started to build the shed back there and how he had come out with a glass window pane to set in the wall facing his house.  He leaned it against the fence and went in the house and never came back out." I paused and thought about this what had been told and when a cough or a sneeze did not ensue noticed his allergies were gone along with the rest of the world. 

And then are you are you coming? Following following along I meant are you following along with this? The shed business? Is that what is being asked in regards to? Lost in terms of who is doing the asking didn't intend to be a spoilsport but the royal we had its head lopped off some time ago floated along a river didn't count on rivers to run through flat dry streets of shred tires and broken glass floating about when it rarely rains like taking a piss in the desert careful when you swallow floss out the shards and treads ended up falling back onto that bed a bed nonetheless made it fell in it from what others had made and fallen it gravity brings you back to what you assumed you had gotten rid of following along with this dogs if I ever come upon one anymore is what I find myself following dogs never followed him when he was a tyke he would follow them and observe them about their business.

Truth is made too much of it
tumbled into the front seat
behind the wheel
in front of the blank strip
the frames snap apart
stretched across the hot bulb of the Sun
tape them back together
her lashes thinning 
going she went
never looked back
thinning upon blistered knees
can't undo their belts themselves
sticking out tongues
to catch whatever residue
follows in the wasteland

truth is
made too much of it

And then must you? Can she continue with what he was going to say about the shed? Didn't mean to laugh at me yes I did that's what they tell me to do when people aren't telling me what someone wanted to tell me show me reaching out across dead fields and then must you? continue with what he was going to say about why he put the hole in the wall for the window facing the back of the house and she never got around to it making her circles even though she no longer had that dress that would do that thing she never got around to it because either she was making up the reason or I kept cutting into her circling and it was the latter he was like that a man for butchering her concentric attempts at congruence even in her most awkward moments and when enough passed and she passed on another cough followed by another sneeze he admitted his allergies had returned and so had the rest of the world.


- Max Stoltenberg


Saturday, March 15, 2014

GIN AND TOXIC

Nothing but the booze biding her time for stumbling over cracks in the pavement over crotches so over that pulling on that rope coming out of the closet taking it on the chin on the eyelids it hangs over notches it was notches and cracks in the pavement for stumbling coming back to it after a after a what do you want to call it what do I what does she want to call it what do you have to do with it?  Nothing but booze biding her time for stumbling over cracks in the pavement over crotches how they got there having to do with the rope that rope coming out of the closet taking it on the taking it that's what it comes down to as we most of us her this curls up at the bottom.

When did it go?  When did it ever go through her eyes?  That might be why she sat down since the sky had forgotten and the air well the air all the wrong things intersected with her an existence for collisions and that might be that is probably why she sat down on the bench.  The bench was along a trail that was along a wash full of weeds behind a building that was along an empty parking lot and she looked out over the weeds and saw a few people and tracked them carefully to see which way they would go along with various commentaries about their possible quirks and manners in which they would opt to commit suicide.

All of the few people went on their sullen ways except for one who stopped by the bench and stood by the overflowing garbage can and fished around in his pockets.  She took out a piece of paper and a mechanical pencil.  

The fire had worked through half the office even though the send button had been hit on the email along with its urgent status along with its indicator to see who would read it along with who would delete it along with its subject line re: re-evaluation of re-credentialing.  

"You have a mechanical pencil," he observed as he did not observe his hands were in his pockets motionless and no longer searching around.
"He crawled past the broken coffeemaker to keep under the billowing smoke which had become a color he wasted time trying to figure out if it was more yellow or brown," she said as she scribbled on the paper.
"Is that how you create emotional distance by referring to people in the third person?" he observed as he did not observe a piece of garbage get blown by a gust of wind against his shirt.
"His knees felt the change in texture from carpet to tile and then the wetness of a strange spill on the floor," she continued to say as she continued to scribble on the paper.
"I'm going to give up on my pockets and admit I have nothing left and lower myself again to examining what the trash can has for me while I try to think of what to say to my ending up on my knees," he observed as he did not observe he had stepped in the remains of something that had died who knows how long ago.
"He went through a list of possible suspects in his head of who might have been responsible for the nasty spill as it spread through the left knee of his pants. As he began to compile the list he found himself conducting at first a statistical comparison of the number of women to men and then he paired them together thinking he was clever and adept at something despite what he told his brain every day he mechanically trudged to work to fill a cubicle so he could fill in little fields in the PDF files on his computer screen," she said as she ignored how small the scrap of paper was.
"You look like you're trying to forge a prescription. Is there even a letterhead at the top? Won't do you any good without a letterhead at the top," he observed as he did not observe he couldn't move any closer to get a better view of her scrap of paper because he was standing on the loose shoe lace of the shoe he was attempting to lift to start with.
"Anger at himself fumed inside his body as the office blazed around him realizing the relationships that already existed and no longer existed between his pairings. He was going to start it again another conflagration of his anger directed out towards everyone else. He was going to start it again and he fumbled around inside his pockets for what for a match to ignite his hatred for them all?" she said scribbling a little on the bottom corner of the scrap of paper.
"You didn't write all you just said. It's definitely a medication. Is it an anti-depressant? Is it an anti-psychotic? Is it a mood stabilizer? Whose signature are you going to put? Maybe I just happened to come along at the right time to tell you if the signature you are forging belongs to someone worth forging," he observed as he did not observe she was looking at him and had stopped scribbling on her scrap of paper.
"What's the point?" she asked moving back and forth along what had been said and what was going to be said.
"What's the point? Well, I could tell you if well I could-"
"You couldn't tell me anything. I could tell you something."
"You could tell me what?"
"That you're like a dog startling out of one of it's dreams and sniffing around all the usual places."
"That's true. I do do that. Don't know why though."
"I could also tell you something else."
"Is it about animals? I once bumped into this crazed nutjob with long white hair and a soiled kilt who told me there used to be these things called wildlife documentaries and they had a lot of chunks of bloody flesh and close-ups of red teeth."
"I was going to tell you to take your serendipitous happening to be here and shove it up your ass."
"I've done that. I keep pulling it back out. You asked what's the point? And I guess there is no point in saying anything about anybody's signature when I don't know if there is still going to be medications or doctors for that matter."
"There's going to be meds and doctors to coat the shit people pull back out of their asses. And I was referring to what's the point of trying to continue with a story when men come along to fuck up the ending?  They want to handle the timelines while relegating women to the clotheslines."
"Perhaps I should forge my way to the cliff."
"It doesn't work anymore."
"What do you mean the cliff doesn't work anymore?"
"So many bodies have piled up that jumping off doesn't kill you. And don't give me that if I had a time machine horseshit."
"I don't why even up."
"What?"
"I don't know why I even showed up.  I leave out words when I get upset."
"That's a combination of starvation and hopelessness."
"I don't recall ordering that. Who ordered that?"
"Don't look at me."
"Will you be here tomorrow?"
"Probably not. I'm getting tired of stopping at these places to stop and rest. They're conveniently placed next to receptacles of overflowing garbage."
"There might still be another cliff further on where the bodies are not stacked too high to break your fall."
"More others to get in the way of my ending."
"Don't let me hold you up," he observed as he did not observe her mechanical pencil had no lead and he lifted his other shoe to walk on along the weeds along the wash along the trail behind the building along the empty parking lot.

When did it go?  When did it ever go through her eyes?  That might be why she sat down since the sky had forgotten and the air well the air all the wrong things intersected with her an existence for collisions and that might be that is probably why she sat down on the bench.

Towards a lease on extinction
Decrepitude lined the film
over their eyes
packed with a haze
calling out 
not to anyone or anyone in particular
only from desks and aging chairs
means and ends twisted into a helix
nor trippingly wrought from bent metal
shattered views of the world
carriages of the latest arrivals
and coffins and beds of the oldest
middle ones bunching up between
the cracks forming around the toilets
out of order


- Max Stoltenberg