Wednesday, December 16, 2015

DARKNESS

The darkness is calling me nagging me to come over and sit down squat by its bowl of nightmares and vomit my heart into it and listen to the crushing sound of valves smashed into each other and say what words they are what drenched images they are could have are not without light without purpose without me within me like knives left in organs ready to fly into oncoming droning inhumanity it's part of its nature born with it between dark red thighs sweating with effort wasted on suffering this life of torture expectations dancing in the middle of brandished weapons and smirks today tomorrow the same number decreasing value what the fuck does it matter stupidity is in abundance set on fire by pompous righteousness glistening along oil slicked hairy testicles bloody embers sticking to the scrotum of the straight and narrow minded.  Dirtbags in the wind scum in the dust slapping dried out faces that happen that happen to be in our way as we were on our way to expire in the desert but no we go past our date way past our date clumping together into larger chunks in the weeds rolling about in the razor wire uncoiling itself from the staves of the music spread across the nothingness called civilization this was it and still is what it is what a thing what a thing to spit into someone's misunderstanding that shrivels up into even harsher sores skin surface that doesn't bother to hide the pitfalls anymore just the advertisement to move out here crash land here just a resident permanent resident of the outside.

"Why are you waving at it?"
"It waved at me."
"It's just a shape a fucked up shape animated programmed to do that."
"I know. It just makes me well less sad a little less sad than she did well he did he made me sadder than she did in the end."
"End? Did you say end?"
"I did so kill me and make an end of me."
"I forgot what I was going to say."
"You mean you forgot what they were going to say. Your words my words our words they don't belong to us."
"You're full of shit."
"I am because they're full of shit been that way since before they were taught how to teach me to make stuff up. Made the whole thing up. We're not getting anywhere."
"I already told you there is no end."
"I can smell it even out here. There's no escaping it."
"What? I know it's me decaying sorry it's taking so long."
"Not just that. There's no escaping that smell of their attempts to erase all the things they keep repeating in their vain attempts to mix it up a bit try to find new expressions new phrases new metaphors and stories scraped up from the fractured pots cracks worming their way through everything trying to erase all the things they keep repeating to convince us to keep going along with their offers erasing and wiping and sprays and sanitizer can't get it out of my nose even out here outside in the open nothing filling up more and more crowded with all their erasing."

Told the dark
to shut up
and it got even quieter
and the silence
is what peeled the side 
of my mind away
exposing all the lack of effort
on my part that's what it's about
what it's been about all this time
this wasted time
hardened with the crust
of my hands the only efforts
my hands have ever really made
wrapping them around the thick
headstone of my stubbornness
not budging for any love
that asks where I've been
what I've done
on the stairs leading down 
to the pit covered in the thinning
reddened skin bleeding with
the friction of re-entering the Earth's
atmosphere from the void
that is the rest of everything else
separated by the cold
that locks the heat in
melting our vision
polluted by the spaces 
between what holds us together
clinging with the static
of our anxiety
bed-ridden to be reawakened
back into the drudge 


- Max Stoltenberg

Friday, December 4, 2015

ROBBED BY THE NAME

If I recall and if I cannot it would be a pressed point ironed on a board flung across the room in the same complex where they cut back on those on those if I recall and if I cannot it would be a pressed point ironed out on what she would say was her last chance for him which was over much sooner much earlier than he was willing to admit he already knew realized in his sleep that interrupted overwrote his plans his agenda his itinerary for the bacon sneezing up that ass far up between fire escapes overlooking that thin parking lot in the back where the tumbleweeds had their meetup to discuss phrases that dissolved in their mouths and not on their steno pads where they could take it out on each other trying to make it work if you will and you will cover the planet in the shroud of your hypocrisy bent on orbiting around my looping thoughts just to make sure they don't wander too far from the passenger seat made for passenger seat polishing this ass this wrinkled expanding rumpled ass excusing itself for another thumbing your nose at images from one to the other and returning to face the next line of discourse the next corner to turn and if I recall and if I cannot I cannot and that is that so they they never show up not here somewhere away from the drain clogged with whatever smells like that the hushing through the glass of the window this cold ear sticking for the winter to the dead inside my bandana stinking of whatever has that drain stagnating like a gut underneath that heart ready to stuff that gasoline drenched scarf down your throat and light up your dark places with incendiary remarks and that is going to leave it as is.  Can't cannot block that call from the man standing on the roof of that car red looks like some burgundy remember drinking that bottle of that stuff we got at that party well it wasn't quite a party some going away for someone we hardly not because we weren't long enough and we're there long enough we just didn't acknowledge her enough and now we admit in this empty room all empty except for the screws laying on their sides that we actually don't give didn't give a shit and we keep telling them our cover story that we already gave at the office not anywhere anyone would remember but in a better spot maybe like the one over there where people forget what happens because they don't give much of a shit to look over that way there over there where people forget what happens. And we lie lay somewhere between the cats that the world is made for and the feral cats that the indignant that the world is not made for anything resembling the leaning more towards where the red needle leans against the unhelpful rocking in the gutter spitting out the last pieces of vomited samples and we lie lay somewhere between the cats that the world is made for because it is not made for us or maybe it is has been all along bought and paid for waiting for us to fuck up and house us again and again returning thinner and thinner grayer and grayer until we lie lay somewhere our sweating heads dripping with madness.


- Max Stoltenberg