Thursday, August 28, 2014

BONEHEAD QUOTIENT

The development around from the how things were developing testing the dirt the gravel brought by foot by the foot underfoot testing the dirt worse than expected that is this is not true talked about this discussed this preparation for the worst or worse than that actually actually say that while you while I move my fingers like this like little worms just waiting to attack my eyes have to get through the glasses first no lost those a ways back ways back back then had more ways now there is only one way the long way round the middle of the blind entertainment and its sayings about how blind it is when there was a desk between us the performance capacity was abnormally boundless pouring out and forth over the belt keeping pants a sick trunk I wave my cup where did it go got up it did when you spoke too much and too loudly plosive articulation firing in all directions between us the performance capacity was abnormally boundless pouring out and forth over the belt whipped against the glass of the window taped to the dark stars sinking into an imagination stabbed hundreds of times doing the math no favors no nipples no mouths sewn with silent waffling.

"Who are you talking to?" asked Shrillage.
"No one," said Deskman.
"You were saying something."
"I thought you were ignoring what I was saying."
"I was. I was really trying and then you have been going on and on of late. You hadn't before that, but started up again of late."
"Of late. Yes, yes, I have. Took another crack at it. That's been my problem a terminal ability of not being able to stay resigned. One time I caught myself looking up at a ceiling and then I thought about all the times I looked up at ceilings when I started out not knowing where I was disoriented and all. Then I thought about all the places I spent so much time stuck in familiar with and sick of and how I could can never recall what those ceilings looked like bland tents of meeting."
"And now we have no ceiling at all except for sunless days."
"A thinning towel separating us from the kiln of the void."
"What did I say?"
"I have no idea. Something about sunless days."
"No, to start things off."
"I don't think it was anything you said. Bombardment of some sort or other. Bacteria from a meteor. What's it called?"
"Panspermia."
"Sounds like a non-stick birth control."
"We're both confounding variables of birth control."
"But we're quite stuck."
"Just can't seem to locate the off-ramp. What I was asking about is what did I say later on?"
"You said that it wasn't what it looked like and besides CPR dummies have no lower half."
"Not that. Earlier today."
"Was there an earlier today? I got up late."
"I got up late as well. Doesn't happen very often."
"Was that rain? I felt some drops on my arm."
"That was me unclogging my nose. What did I say to start off this latest bit?"
"Latest bit of what?"
"Conversation."
"Is that what this is?"
"At least it has the wrackful aspects of one. That's what I tell myself."
"Why do you want to know?"
"Because I want to know what I said so then I'll know what you said and then I can make a pathetic claim that I've been maintaining some loose greasy hold on who I am."
"I feel greasy too."
"Maybe you are a non-cohesive contraceptive after all."
"Contradiction you mean."
"Is that how you pronounce it?"
"What we've been saying is non-cohesive."
"That makes sense."
"That makes a plop splash in my skull."

Because I said because I said
because you said because you said
Caught me in it caught me in it
Quarterly uncrumpling
of the used banana peel
dried from the Sun's disgust
flaming spit into the wind
sliced with the blades of exasperation
rays of cloud shooting through
shooting
always that 
until
the overflow
sends
it to the increased vector falling backwards its a hose got in your way always got in your way and now I'm gone or you are gone I'm the contraction you are gone and I'm left with the contractions when further apart or closer together make a lot of empty space to be lost didn't say it last time the last time was it was that when it was went unspoken you wanted to know and he wanted to know what was said and now that I'm thinking about it because I'm the contraction and I'm left with the contractions when further apart or closer together make a lot of empty space to be lost didn't say it last time the last time was it was that when it went unspoken you wanted to know and he wanted to know what was said and now that I'm thinking about it because I'm thinking about it now it's not a matter of what was said but who was said and they went away with who was said much uglier than when they entered mirrors ironed their faces charred reflections they went away with who was said much uglier than when they entered as they exit out of doors no longer there there that's what you get with a desert.

"Put it down. Put it down now," demanded Deskman.
"Put down what? When was the last time you've seen me with a prop?" asked Shrillage quite outraged or bordering on outraged.
"Put down the psychology you've been using on me."
"What psychology?"
"And without a license."
"I fulfilled all the requirements."
"Was it worth it?"
"Not really. I let that balloon float away and vanish."
"Then I was not mistaken."
"More like cliches."
"Psychology is nothing but cliches repackaged re-wrapped to pass by your brain like a syndicated curriculum stringing the same line of duller colored bulbs around the gutters of your head goading you to spin yourself around like a childish overgrown lummox faking it until you make it to being impressed with the repeating cartoon backgrounds."
"My uncle once had a friend who wanted to be a tutor and he thought it would be a good idea to let him practice on me at no charge. And after a week or so of lessons he stopped me while I was trying to explain something or other and he looked me in the eyes and said, If I could teach you to relax I would feel like I could make a difference. You don't have to be so earnest. I get it. You're not a phony. You just need to find where you fit. And since then I've found that I don't fit anywhere. I am authentically at the bottom spilled out onto the desert after all that fighting along the surface tension of the machine of existence."

Tested untested tested untested a corner poking the wrist pushing it in squatting on a corner poking the wrist pushing it in the music is over dim bulbs of notes crushed into bubbles polluted filled in tested untested tested untested a corner poking the wrist pushing it in squatting on a corner poking the wrist pushing it in the music is over dim bulbs she was up in the tree had climbed the branches thick obscured what who she was no trees around here.


- Max Stoltenberg

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

STILLBORN FOOTNOTES

Sanity raged in my family raging it ran in my family from one wall to the other from one room to the other from the bed to the car from door to door from foot to mouth from elbow to ass from hearts to hands from arteries to the floor from the floor to bloody palms from bloody palms to the face to the operating room to operational definition to mission statement to laminator to wall raging in bold letters red with raging sanity raged in my family raging it ran in my family from one wall to the other no escaping it from dead end to dead end from strained muscle to strained expression from stained undergarments to preparing to flinch from maintaining appearances to keeping up from fuck up to fuck up sanity raged in her family raging it ran in her family from one corkboard to the other as they grew empty emptier the being was recaptured and another 7 years was added to the sentence.

"We only have one pushpin."
"I know. It's been like this for long enough."
"Long enough for what?"
"Long enough for me to know."
"You must be pretty dense."
"That would not be far from dead on the mark."
"And what would be dead on the mark?"
"Some poor old bastard by the looks of him."
"When did he get there?"
"The morning flames of the Sun torch another cadaver as well as expose the night's most recent defecation."
"I wonder if he was killed in bed."
"You're wondering can be compared to windowless shopping in this abyss. Beds are body-bags with pillows."
"Are you suggesting that it might possibly have been manslaughter next to the bed?"
"I am suggesting nothing of the kind. I doubt very much this dead sap has been anywhere near a bed in ages."
"Ages? And how much does that amount to out of my life? Your life?"
"My life. My life amounts to stumbling into my final destination: a warehouse full of crumpled up empty water bottles."
"If only I could come across a phone."
"Just so you could confirm the silence of the universe on the other end of the line."
"I might get a connection. You never know."
"What a stroke of luck it would be to have your head refilled with the same old noises the same old regurgitations."
"It was you making those barfing sounds last night that interrupted one of my dreams involving a hospital administrator going on and on about staffing levels and non-formularies and how he can't seem to find good honey anywhere and he's spewing this all from the backseat of my car while I am trying to navigate our way out of this strangely designed neighborhood consisting of roads mapped out like Venn diagrams. Then I hear this disturbed gurgling coming from what I think is the engine only to find out it was you making those barfing sounds last night that interrupted one of my dreams involving-"
"A hospital administrator in the backseat of your car. I've heard this somewhere before. Have you ever had a car?"
"Just in this dream I had last night. I do remember during the dream being aware of taking the time in my head to notice what it was like to drive. So this is driving I was thinking to myself. And just as the space began to stretch a little that's when I felt like I was in a box with wheels as if trudging over a cheese grater and it kept closing in on me my head the pressure closing in feeling it in my lobes inside the tiles of my ears and turning from one street around the next corner onto another street the same street around the next corner the same corner looping into circles a pattern of knotted labyrinths nested inside each other streets and corners looping as your eyes split in halves shimmering with the dying juice of fruitless traveling mirrors reflecting each other into endless dark tunnels."
"And then I woke you up with my vomiting."
"Not just yet there was the dead animal."
"Dead animal?"
"Next to me on the passenger seat."
"Could you tell what kind of dead animal it was?"
"Now that I think about it the windshield. It was on the windshield. Some nasty organ that had to do with digestion or excretion perhaps smashed right there and blocked my view."
"An internal organ collided into your line of vision."
"Just as I thought I saw a woman who reminded me of a young lady my mother took in as a renter at this abandoned amusement park we squatted at for a while."
"Did she actually have money to pay you rent?"
"She would pay us with money she found around the park."
"Why didn't you just scavenge for the money yourselves?"
"My mother insisted on having about the place the kind of woman she didn't want me going off and marrying and I didn't feel much in the mood for scraping up loose change that had mostly accumulated by the merry-go-round. Didn't believe in marriage anyway. Being in her vicinity was enough. Until she disappeared."
"What was she like?"
"That's when you woke me up with your barfing."

Under a bridge 
grabbing at wordless sayings
chest open shut nodding
disapproval fumbling
for a place to latch onto
a beam of the towers
one of them 
climbing back down
after the rot
tired thoughts
that die in their sleep
the night before
under a bridge
grabbing at wordless sayings
climbing back down
still fall
not too far
enough to keep going on
with the unconvincing
persuasive dragging
through the desert
under a bridge 
after the rot
tired thoughts
that die in their sleep
reawakened by the sand
kicked in their facing it
with the unconvincing 
persuasive dragging
through the desert

"Maybe he was dropped from the sky?"
"Who? The poor bastard over there? I haven't heard or seen anything flying over."
"What about that really long menacing shape we spotted the other day?"
"You mean that cloud?"
"It wasn't just a cloud. There was some unusual sound coming from inside of it up there like some great metal doors opening up to release another expired prisoner."
"What you heard were the doors of your brain crapping out exhausted rationalizations."
"Maybe he was always here dead for some time and was lying under a waste pile that got blown away during one of our many dust storms."
"That might initially seem a little more plausible than your first speculation, but garbage tends to collect here rather than be dispersed from here."
"That's true. The only validation in my life has been parking."
"So you had a car?"
"I managed to get a company car briefly until I totaled it crashing into a row of portajohns.  They decided not to replace the wreck and demoted me instead to working in the copier room. Spent most of my time clearing paper jams and having to read over their nauseating catch phrases like: make change a habit until it becomes a routine."
"At least you had a company car. I never had a car. I dreamt about driving a car with a hospital administrator in the backseat."
"Bitching incessantly about non-formularies."
"Exactly. Have you heard this?"
"I have another speculation."
"About what?"
"About the poor dead bastard over there."
"What about him?"
"I think we have been approaching the problem of him from the wrong direction."
"The wrong direction?"
"All the time we have been trying to reconstruct how he (the poor dead bastard) came to be situated thus dead on the mark over there when we have been ignoring how we came to be situated thus dead on the mark over here. We are nothing more than in our vexatious attempts to keep him (the poor dead bastard) in our thoughts he (the poor dead bastard) has been keeping us (the two worthless shits) in his thoughts."
"You mean it isn't as we surmised?"
"Not by any means. We (the two worthless shits) will not find rest in the black screen of the computer monitor being shut down for the last time. No heralding of an endless obscurity or stupefaction. There is only to be us (the two worthless shits) to linger in the indestructible particles of a corpse's afterthoughts."

Can't get it out the how is it put hard put to get it to come out right or even wrong or out at all only stuffed between molding coats in the closet to drop when the walls tremble with decay's feigned curiosity landing on the dirty rug among the overturned roaches brittle shells of former organic disgust how is it put hard put to get it to come out right or even wrong can't get it out the how is it put hard put to get it to come out right or even wrong or out at all only stuffed between molding coats in the closet to drop when the walls tremble with decay's feigned curiosity.


- Max Stoltenberg