Monday, June 29, 2015

MIDDLE FINGER TEMPEST

She didn't have to kill meaning it would dissolve around her on its own like a camera cellphone flash that fades and hurts your eyes those bananas are going bad bought too many again or didn't eat them fast enough both she would say were the case as one of her ankles itched and she scratched at the one and pulled down her sock to see the red marks she left from her nails the toolbox had so much shit in it she couldn't find the extra brackets she thought were in there for fixing the bookshelf that fell and all the dusty books all the dust all the bent corners of books that were there before and that were there after the latest shelf had fallen and she looked at some of the titles and asked herself if she had read them why she hadn't read them yet yet she flipped through the pages of Amber Alerts Her Friends and Other Stories and began to look over a page somewhere towards the middle of one of the other stories entitled "Flesh Solitaire" describing a woman cursing rather colorfully at her lazy Susan that had just jammed and how she had to knock over various containers and "make a fucking mess" just to be able to reach in the back and "grab and drop the damned sea salt in the douchey desert." She scanned a little further leading to a couple pages on detailing an awkward encounter with another woman in a furniture store where the other woman apparently in the business of coercing information regarding a favorite sports team and signing some petition to stay in the kitchen drove the protagonist to call for the store manager who took the petitioning harpy's side. Only chapters later would she think of how his body secretes the obvious. 

"How long has he been in there?" she asked.
"How am I supposed to know?" he squawked back at her.
"Don't tell me you forgot your watch," she said.
"No I remembered it. It ran out of battery," he muttered.
"Really? Seriously? How long has it been out of battery?" she asked.
"How am I supposed to know?" he squawked back at her.
"You are a clueless vague man," she said.
"I made sure to order both," he said recalling the cafeteria they had discovered with no walls, roof, or food, just bugs and piles of dirty skeletons.

III

She stared at the grimy building as she stood up a little over the rubble they both hid behind on a nearby hill. There were no windows on the lower floors and the few that there were on the upper ones had dark metal plates in them. As her eyes drifted back down to the lower levels she wished she could find a bathroom and then thought of when she looked for her and squat back down noticing how her knees hurt.

"He's probably better off in there," she winced.
"How could you say that?" he asked awkwardly.
"Because it's fucking true. Look at us!" she raised her voice but not too much to draw suspicion.
"I thought I had it pinpointed the moment when this all of this I don't know slapped me hard enough to help me realize help was ridiculous and not help in general but my help," he said thinking of the dog food dish he had stopped cleaning after it was apparent that any further effort would never return it to anything resembling somewhat clean not new said thinking thinking of the dog food dish he had stopped cleaning after it was apparent that any any further clueless vague.
"Our help this involves both of our wasted pointless contributions this is not all about you you know," she said rubbing her left knee in particular.
"I used to think it was when I watched my dog look up at me sniff at her food and walk away that did it. Then I thought you bastard it was when we were complaining about a cluster fuck of different things and just as my son was about to chime in I told him to can it after all that prodding him to stand up to those little pricks and what he told me they would say. Guess I wasn't in the mood or I never could hold too much shit would fall out of my hands so easily I can't remember what he did get off his small chest when he could actually give it words."
"And that was it?" she asked.
"What was it?" he asked looking at her rubbing her knees.
"The moment with your son that was the one you finally pinpointed as when you became aware of the pointlessness of your help," she said thinking of when they had stopped looking for her.
"No obviously that wasn't it either," he said.

Left something out
on and off too quickly
who was that?
what was that?
heart misses another
beat this person
climbing walls
they nailed things into
them
and their nails


- Max Stoltenberg

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

LOOK TO THE DRAIN

Where had that thing that they were going to discuss say gone off to? Tell you them to their face faces somebody threw them their faces against the wall next to the glass the glass window and watched them slide down most of the day and almost all night haven't even made it halfway down the wall don't know where the halfway mark is very certain about the halfway mark in their faces could always see that with their being so half-assed and now we're getting that red line underneath part of what we see and it's distracting us from the verses about the drowning in something or other that's been defecated triangles with shaved heads in the corners examining the morose toenails dragging along the floors of downcast closets threading the talks between lenses where had that thing that they were going to discuss say gone off to? Tell you them to their face faces somebody threw them their faces against the wall next to the glass the glass window and watched them slide down most of the day and almost all night haven't even made it halfway down the wall don't know where the halfway mark is very certain about the halfway mark in their faces could always see that with their being so half-assed and now we're getting that red line underneath part of what we see surrounding the painting of the reeking bed in darker shades of nightmares sinking into the folds of the soiled sheets their being.

Their being said whatever came to their minds in this place this place that is one not too generously measured off garbage disposal jammed until another one opens their mouth running a sharp observation around the rim of our lowered expectations falling down further into our guts smothered with more to do with less returning to the shitter just came from there left prematurely into the rest of the world as usual. The animals are getting up before we ask each other where we've been where they've gone that they were going to discuss say that thing that they were going to discuss gone off to?

Don't quite follow you
and never been one
not to follow

"What do you think you're doing?" 
"Putting some things together."
"What things?"
"Birth and death."
"What are you talking about?"
"Or at least a little closer together."
"Are you intending what I think you're intending?"
"Thoughts and actions."
"Just come back into the break room."
"My therapist said neurotics have a major disconnect between their thoughts and their actions."
"I'll get you something from the snack machine."
"I thought you didn't have any money."
"The snack machine has a debit card reader now."
"I thought you didn't have any money in your bank account at all."
"Just not until after the next 3 paychecks that's all."
"And so I'm plugging those cables into each other."
"4 paychecks then I'm back to about base."
"Let go of my arm."
"Ground dirt level."
"Let go of my left arm if there was any confusion in that congested knuckle head of yours."
"Fine go."

Don't quite follow you
and never been one
not to follow
nasty ink of the asshole
gets on everything
standing in the doorway
of the same thing
over and over
and over
teacher said teacher said
and now 
closing it behind me
a last kick 
into my internal mess
sends me in the direction
of her bones
in the grave

"Did you hear me?"
"I did."
"Then go."
"I did just mentally it was practice."
"Go physically if that's what you really want. Plug your cables into each other. Go fuck yourself."
"I thought I was already doing that just by being here."
"It's really hot out there."
"I know."
"It burns your skin out there."
"I know what a desert does you ulcerated idiot. That's why I'm going."
"There's no water out there."
"I'm sick of the water in here."
"I've vomited twice today."
"I mean I'm sick of the water in here in my body."
"Twice is below average for me."
"I'm prolonging this and I know why."
"Because of my crafty argumentation?"
"No."
"Because they keep making you add more letters to the end of your name?"
"That's actually part of it, but no. I just find myself glancing out into that vast waste behind our complex and dreading how long it will take."
"Then come back in and do it some quicker way."
"They've taken all the sharp office supplies."
"I still manage to hurt myself."
"As do I just not mortally."
"You'd think with all the radios playing different channels at the same time that would be enough to send one over the edge."
"It was when they were all set to the same one that I thought did it, but now I can add another reason why I took so long to off myself to the list."
"You just reminded me that I haven't finished that report for Ruckus in Post-Human Resources."
"Will you shut the hell up?! Shit, working in a prison has to be the most literal fucked up metaphor there is."
"You're just realizing that now?"
"It comes back to me every so often along with the chest pains and the spasms in my thumb muscle."
"I get that as well the thumb muscle thing that is."
"All the desert is good for is drying out our dirty laundry."
"It's the little things in life."
"And a dry red wine sloshes around all that baggage back to life."
"My ex and I would fight over which one of us had to turn all the shirts right side out when folding and putting the clothes away."
"I thought there were all the infidelities that was the culprit."
"The culprit was that she couldn't take her shirts off like a normal human being and then we had to fight about it and that led to us disagreeing about all the other horseshit."
"They haven't taken the staple removers. I could use that, but it's a matter of them finding me at my desk and all that. I prefer the idea of doing the erasing myself at least the rest of it."
"It's the little things in life."
"Then there are all the checkpoints."
"I'm giving it until our conversations start sounding like those recorded phone calls that are programmed to sound like a person responding to what you say. That's what'll do it for me."
"Perhaps I'll wait till after work."
"They have checkpoints in your neighborhood."
"They're not in effect until about an hour after my shift. That gives me about a 15 minute window to get to the edge."
"What if they make you stay over?"
"It'll have to be next week then."
"Next week?"
"Next week, definitely."

Their being said whatever came to their minds in this place this place that is one not too generously measured off garbage disposal jammed until another one opens their mouth running a sharp observation around the rim of our lowered expectations falling down further into our guts smothered with more to do with less returning to the shitter just came from there left prematurely into the rest of the world as usual. The animals are getting up before we ask each other where we've been where they've gone that they were going to discuss say that thing that they were going to discuss gone off to?


- Max Stoltenberg

Sunday, June 7, 2015

TRAPDOORMATS

"Have you tried this one?" Plug asked pointing at the door he was approaching on the right. "Yes, I tried that one," answered Trench in a tired manner as he looked back down the dark corridor. Plug reached for the door handle as Trench commented, "You're going to try it anyway, aren't you?" Plug shook the door handle and opened his hand in a pathetic effort to untouch and undo his action. He said, "What?" "You didn't believe me did you?" declared Trench who continued down the corridor and around a corner disappearing from Plug's view as his voice echoed, "I told you already all the doors behind us I have tried." "What if we're going in circles?" asked Plug. "Squares," said Trench trying another door handle that did not open yet another door, "If we're revisiting parts of the building which we are not then we would be going in squares since none of the corridors have curved as far as I can tell. Have you noticed any curving?" "Only when I look out the edges do the corridors look like they're curving," said Plug moving his eyes back and forth. "Edges?" asked Trench speeding up as he noticed another door and then slowing down with anticipated discouragement. "Edges of my spectacles," explained Plug.

Plug turned the corner not the corner mentioned above but the next one after that actually two after the next one and by that next one the one after next actually one after that. Plug thought to himself about why he bothered to keep up with Trench at all until he caught up with him and saw that he was leaning against one of the walls and sliding his back down to sit on the floor. "What are we doing?" asked Plug sitting down next to Trench who responded, "We're pausing." "I know but that's not what I was inquiring about," said Plug. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather stay on this level of inquiry," said Trench moving his knees together and apart. 

No it's not all the same to me
This dry ocean of cranky
after taste and second guessed 
worries and insecurities
stirred with others' blinks
wary of elevator copulation
up the shaft 
to the basement 
underneath her abandonment
or was it his?

"Was that a poem?" asked Trench moving his knees together and opening the right corner of his mouth thus smashing the eye above it shut. "What poem?" asked Plug continuing, "I usually don't know what to say when someone doesn't want to accompany me on moving up a level of inquiry." "Well I heard a fucking poem just now," insisted Trench. "Certainly not on the outside of your head," said Plug patting his shirt. "Wary of . . ." began Trench. "I'm not wary of anything but your sanity if you must know," said Plug continuing, "Plug." "Why do you do that?" asked Trench looking at Plug patting his shirt. "It feels like I have a spider under my shirt. Did you notice all the cobwebs back there?" said Plug. "Why do you say your name every so often?" inquired Trench. "To remind myself about blank," said Plug. "Blank? You're not doing it to remember what your name is? You've forgotten just about everything else that matters," said Trench. "Could be. We'll just say that's what it is this time," said Plug. 

And they remained paused there corners losing and regaining their turn in the sequence sequences that gave way to other patterns exhumed in their minds and as each of them nodded off and on Trench thought to himself as if he could think to someone else although how had Plug managed to think to him earlier he could deny it all he wanted he had replied to him in the form of a poem stacked the phrases had been wary of elevator blank what would they say it is this time was this time as they he knew they both did it all right he knew he at least did that they thought to themselves told themselves that their dirty laundry was behind one of these doors and as the sound of metal echoed in his brain he could see the stains left behind by his father's car that he continued to wait to pull back into the garage any time now as saw the detergent spill all over the top of the dryer and down between the machines he tried to joke away the anger's palpableness being joined by the sound of an arriving engine only to hear the terrifying quiet and his thoughts slipping between the machines.


- Max Stoltenberg