INFO SKIRMISH

How to get at it was the problem with the undigested or not yet digested parts positions the usual such unusual the usual blanks to fill in with the usual things we tell ourselves as we tread carefully making sure not to slip on the floor lubed up with the latest bodily fluid slick watch your step was it 2 or 3 go back to 1 and start over where you come in the door before you come in the door and wait press the button where you wait and press the button and looking at dark glass opaque with absence turning around to look for the mountains obscured by haze maybe not maybe which comes first in the mind which to end with which becomes close to it in the epistemological spin of the wheel is that how it is done how to get at it probably probably not which comes first in the mind which to end with which becomes close to it in the whatever some side effect special effect some side effect put it there and the skin is turning a strange unusual color usual color seen it before the last time your face looked down at the dirty rug in front of the toilet and the cafeteria tray saw it flying over the fence wanted to see one do that although it had be accompanied by the splatter of food the usual such unusual usual bruised menu for those who stand in line and forgot to bring forgot it on the counter in the kitchen back home turnaround swept by the exhaust of turnover or swallow it in a big enough gulp empty plastic bottle falling from hands bouncing off the concrete face planting a corpse too usual such unusual too usual a tired swing back against the button depress it with your ass your gut depress it and they will ignore you for it not anyhow how to get at it.

"Where are you going?"
"What? I was going to see if there was any coffee left."
"You just made a fresh pot."
"I did, but if Bellicose didn't call out sick again then it might be gone already."
"When did they hire somebody?"
"They haven't hired anyone in months."
"I thought they preferred us short-staffed."
"They do. It didn't register any of my progress. I have to fucking start all over again."
"Hopped the median have we? It's just that I don't recall us having anyone by that name. Are you referring to a document or an RPG?"
"Do you hear that? What is that? Does that sound like a swarm of bees to you?"
"Like what the last dust storm blew into the vents?"
"Just like that. Shit that sucked."
"No. I think it's one of the auditors in the next office."
"Scratching their nails or talons on something?"
"They have their own soundtrack utilizing dissonant strings."
"What kind of soundtrack would you say I have?"
"Along the lines of orchestral fragments that suggests music unable to form into anything coherent like a cigarette lighter that sparks but never lights."
"Not even a dirge?"
"Not a . . ."
"Not a?"
"Not a . . ."
"Not a what?"
"Not a sausage."
"Where did you go just then?"
"Where did I go?"
"Yes, where did you go?"
"When did I go is more the question. And I can tell you it wasn't during the dot dot dot."
"Is this about there being an infinite number of little sub-dot particles between each of the three dots?"
"I could go into that more in depth but there is neither enough time or space in work and sleep never mind all the time or space I have wasted inside a fax machine."
"I thought you were going to say a woman."
"If I were ever that fortunate it would have been more appropriate to frame it the other way around."
"I don't really give a shit when you went there's a septic tank in that head of yours and it's flooding the grass of my mood and that reminds me I've almost saved up enough to get my medical marijuana card."
"How have you managed to save at all? Are you starving yourself again?"
"Just putting off my creditors as long as I can that's all."
"That's all."
"And starving."
"I knew it. That explains why you look like an clear piece of shrink-wrap with nothing inside."
"It's not that bad. I'm ending up paying less. Fake card and what not."
"And what not."
"And that entails the loose lips and the sinking of ships what not right?
"Right. Although no bodies of water in this dried out barren void. Only bodies of bottled water. Loose lips messy shits."
"I have to make sure to protect my interests with all that swirling maelstrom of filth in that head of yours."
"I'm destroying worlds in here. I see darkness outside the window and inside every room. I burst every bubble other people float close enough to me. I watch every one of their pathetic little rainbows on those thin surfaces disappear into the nothingness they really are."
"Did you ever hear the one about the mother who had enlisted her daughter's help to clean her room in preparation for a move that was later postponed when the father didn't get the job. The mother found a collage her daughter had put together including a photograph of a woman leaning against a tree that had been drawn on some studio background. The woman leaning against the tree was naked except for a sheet of paper over her crotch that had a drawing of a man's face with his mouth open. The woman's hole wasn't even her own."
"I hear the auditor talking to somebody on the phone."
"What're they saying?"
"I don't know but it does sound like another dust storm outside."

The wheel is that how it is done how to get at it probably probably not which comes first in the mind which to end with which becomes close to it in the whatever some side effect special effect some side effect put it there and the skin is turning a strange unusual color usual color seen it before the last time your face looked down at the dirty rug in front of the toilet and the cafeteria tray saw it flying over the fence wanted to see one do that although it had be accompanied by the splatter of food the usual such unusual usual bruised menu for those who stand in line.


- Max Stoltenberg

SCANT PEERING

The shadows crafted the responses of the hidden nonsense made doughy for shit pizza the noble and not so noble mostly the not so noble mostly finger painting a brown mess the ceiling vibrating with the humming that gave one a headache her aunt's acid reflux precipitating sitting around meals delayed by planning too many cooks the water tastes funny again the same invitations guffawing their nauseated reticence to say anything while all around them on the other side of the wall at the end of the hallway the shadows crafted the responses of the hidden nonsense made doughy for shit pizza the noble and not so noble mostly the not so noble mostly finger painting a brown mess steeped in it teabag left out too long not good enough for the cup the jockstrap stuffed between the cheek and gum the cheek and bunghole.

"She went to his apartment," said the man in the orange shirt.
"And then what happened?" asked the man in the brown pants.
"She came back with a book," said the man in the orange pants.
"She was a reader," stated the man in the brown shirt.
"You are a highly perceptive one," remarked the man in the orange shoes.
"That's it for today," commented the man in the brown shoes.
"What's what for today?" asked the man in the orange shirt.
"I'm terminating this session," declared the man in the brown pants.
"You'll come back around to this," muttered the man in the orange pants.
"The gravitational pull is ferocious," coughed the man in the brown shirt.
"You can't escape me," bragged the man in the orange shoes.
"You were more genuine when you spoke on behalf of a this," snarked the man in the brown shoes.
"It's my blood that's keeping these walls standing," mentioned the man in the orange shirt.
"It's these walls that are keeping you sitting at your desk," belched the man in the brown shirt.
"You were more genuine when you spoke on behalf of a that," half-barked the man in the orange pants.
"I almost took one of my darker thoughts and said something, but I didn't want to hurt your feelings," said the man in the brown pants.
"What feelings? I don't have any feelings left," grunted the man in the orange shoes trying to sound mechanical but not too much like a cartoonish robot.
"Enough to manage half a bark," commented the man in the brown shoes.
"Was that what that was? I've never been management material no matter how badly they need a cadaver that's been dumped out in the desert to reheat," belched the man in the orange shirt.
"If you're going to construct an argument by appealing to a total lack of popularity then I'll leave you to your funeral arrangements," farted the man in the brown shirt.
"You're just saying that because you have a bug growing inside your dick," retched the man in the orange pants.
"The one that crawled out from between your mother's legs," hissed the man in the brown pants.
"You know this reminds me of a meal that I shit out almost immediately," quipped the man in the failed organ lounge.
"Which brings us back to dirty laundry," uttered the man in the lower definition corner.
"I'll send it out first thing tomorrow morning and it'll be back right after lunch," crunched the man in the bottleneck sticking out its necrophilia.
"Our dirty laundry you know the kind we wear on the outside of our uniforms. I was speaking what is that called?" wondered the man in the back of the cockroach display sprinkled with irrelevance and the facetious.
"I thought I returned mine," questioned the man in the room for questioning the man who was questioning him better than he ever questioned himself.
"Idiomatically. They wanted the original birth certificates mailed and they never sent them back and everybody still had expiration dates and theirs had to come up so quick and hers and mine the one with the soonest hasn't come up it hasn't been brought up no one no one brings it up," shushed the man the keyless key chain unworthy thermometer he shrinks down into between his pauses not saying much these days.
"No we traded them in for these wafer crumbed vestments we brush ever so earnestly after being dropped off outside trying to remove or slather on another layer for the carpool the metal can rolling through the desert the hourglass that never empties that can never be turned on its head," croaked the mass of blood born pathogens rendering ineffective the curtains for parting only merging and concealing.

She pointed to the footprints by the copier and set it up like this: "He said to her that it was her fault it wasn't time yet for their daughter not being ready yet to tell them spell it out for them that they left out a verse not the one about being passed over but the one where she does get included and that's when things went wrong and she turned to him and reminded him that it was he who had not allowed her to include that verse."

He nodded towards the gap in the cabinets between the top drawer and the bottom drawer and set it up like this: "She said to him as they walked back from the admin wing that she thought he had overplayed his hand in recommending her and everyone who had left with her slipping out cold back doors to return to their hot seats and he unperturbed mentioned that he had noticed her facial gestures standing in the doorway nods of agreement to everything he had said with his mouth on the front of his head he squeezed between his fists in the darkness later on reaching for nothing.

She lifted her chin at the camera above the door and set it down like this:

Notorious stairs folded into squelched annoyance
Depending on your choice of sabotage
Self-sabotage in the limelight
with a dash of separation
several pinches in the back of the shield
fallen over with disillusionment
and the grammar of caution
hesitant truth waiting outside
until they are finished scheming
and the silence that follows 
polluted with their bleeding annotations
of tall short fat bony 
waiting outside

Notorious stairs folded into squelched annoyance
Depending on your choice of sabotage
fallen over hesitant
until they are finished
that follows with a dash
and the grammar of caution
chapping lips on explanations
whiteboards scraped
with shriveled grass
stiff and frozen by the hot sky


- Max Stoltenberg