Monday, February 29, 2016

CLUSTER FLINCHING

This face that face without a licking of the floor the tongue sticking in the wrong side of my thoughts over that way pointing with that finger attached to a gnat narrowed down to one of those waited for it all this time choking coughing on the idea of having chips a bag empty blown away where did it go? the one who knew is no longer here or haven't seen them in a while maybe they got promoted to a position they were not suited for they never got the promotion no one interviewed they did it all internally and that might explain why the rooms in the back the back rooms smell the way they do and they played on while whatever fell out of this head or the one across from it discolored the carpeting or was spread all over the desk between them until it was removed moved out of the way and she wouldn't ask for the tissues just whether it was time to leave should tell from the clock she just asked for permission and that's when the rooms in the back the back rooms and the smell and the playing on they played on while whatever fell out of this head or the one across from it this face that face without a licking of the floor the tongue sticking in the wrong side of my thoughts over that way pointing with that finger attached to a gnat narrowed down to one of those waited for it all this time choking coughing on the idea of having chips a bag empty blown away where did it go? the one who knew is no longer here or haven't seen them in a while.

Then she walked back into the kitchen rubbing her hands and noticing she still held the cigarette she hadn't lit didn't want the rent to go up or how long could she smoke until they found out probably not until after they left and took it out of the deposit they were not going to refund that was when she walked back to the curb that was never finished along the broken collar of the road that sank into the planet the point of entry that reminded one of where you could never quite catch on just a hunch regarding this life thing taking all that that out on bugs the side of the house when we lived there was the wrong house very embarrassing when they asked what I was marking under their window with didn't ask to put it back in or zip up just walked away and chose not to engage just kept walking until the cigarettes ran out still have the lighter hold it with my hands even when tying my shoes always hated laces holes in every pocket and mocking laughter in every corner every pleat of this mind no wonder not much of that not after the man who when he spoke with his eyes the questions stopped and there was no wonder as you walked it was then that the walking started and the wonder stopped and the curb that was never finished along the broken collar of the road that sank into the planet the point of entry that reminded one of where you could never quite catch on always moving trying to move stuck the packing tape any tape roll of tape couldn't find where the tape stuck to itself couldn't quite find where it stuck just turning the roll and turning the roll.


- Max Stoltenberg

Saturday, February 27, 2016

BENT MALICIOUS

Are you going? who are you talking to? speaking with vehemence always liked that don't think it belongs there don't think we belong there don't think I belong here you just don't want to work hard enough and really have an impact you mean like I have on the plumbing in this building when I use the can the shitter I get what you're getting at as well as on my nerves and the recycle bin is there you go again letting yourself be distracted from from what? no I really want to know before the next little blue rectangle fades in in the corner which corner? the bottom right hand corner that's not where that happens then it must happen because you are disagreeing with about details you and your details just to keep me talking no just to keep you and as long as you are still here where did you go? a lock is there thought it was there between a leg of the chair and a leg of the table the only lock is the one that I have to sent a message to the 4th floor and wait who knows how long for  them to unlock it and then in the meantime they can heap their judgments on my head as it sinks down lower into the backs of my hands and they won't have to move and confirm your bloody accusations my bloody accusations? you and your warped sense of pretending to be all melancholy and nihilistic you know what you're right and just to prove it to you I'll lock myself in with their own lock my own lock and not ask anyone to open it not because I need them to let me back in to my mistakes, but just to throw myself into it and stay in my room that's what you want you're right that is what I want, but I have to fucking wait until your room is in another house another world you mean I already have that complaining about my fucking morose wanting to be alone and there we have it we you're talking to the wall I know the wall splattered with your snark are you? are you? spit it out I'm trying maybe an eye a complex or the whole damn brain will come out over the rim and splash into where it all goes and I'm sorry you're sick you're sorry you just want to it's your sorry ass way of asking me to be nice to you do something nice for you hold it in my hands and see how it responds to my attention I am an it you are it and who are you talking to? myself I knew all along I know I know and thanks for reminding me that these storage compartments taped together rub together try to hold on to each other and carry on a whatever you want to call it a back and forth a to and fro while you while it waits until the room is in another house another world you mean it means it.


- Max Stoltenberg

Thursday, February 25, 2016

ALL THAT TO SAY

Up the stairs 
to the top of the building
thoughts don't go this high
and where they stay
hang out and scheme against
going back down
returning to the exit
leaving the entrance back
where it rejects belonging
cliffhangers are for those
who gulp their breath
into bar-stools knocked over
into next chapters
next diversions from guessing
the next cuts into the bark
into the chalk coughing
with teeth spat into wine
nor shall you afix the lines
those little lines 
different thicknesses
like peering at them 
through a round glass
rounded into a parking lot
lost on the way to rows
rows of students
bored to missions
templates put together
for them rearranged
into pieces of cereal
flakes I believe
I believe flakes
into dandruff falling
snowing onto the hills
of nothing much

What the slope represents is the change collecting in your end-table the number of cars that fit into that plastic box where in the dark corner are two voices arguing over the price of their decision they are trying to make separately individually another one obtained a grade another on top of the other one if it can even fit on top or more so underneath less assholes what the fuck does the slope indicate anyway the number of cars that fit into that plastic box say it again and disturb the villa emptied hollowed out and nothing green remains nothing brown just off-white a peeling of spackle didn't get very far just far enough to wheeze into another debate between cells between poles of life and you know that feeling that feeling of suicide when your life feels like a cold burger or more like you are sitting in your own worn out pants full of your own shit and you don't even look up why bother noticing again that same noticing of the box you are in that is inside out.


- Max Stoltenberg

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

DARK IN THE WALK

He didn't go and he wandered off into his routine a chosen reject deemed from before under the watchful spill of stars obscured by polluted dawn where she'd like to go outside the box he held down with his bloody hands stinking of where he felt himself behind his phone turned about to look at his tunneled vision bored into obliviousness.  He was born into oblivion's vomit cast out into the world of rectangular glances through porridge and smoked cigars falling out of your bearded lady's discomfort tuned to a station wagon's rear smelling of napkins getting up to scarf and squatting down to digest fuming speech into the ears of question marks erased by opinionated plates smashed against kitchen floors over heads splitting into couches wet from the tongues of dogs.

Where she ran off from was made out of cardboard these days and days to come to come not if exhaustion had anything to not say about it withheld words sinking into pillows held up along the sides of brains that run on full tanks of worry knocking and chalking it up to technology the technology that uses people has always used people to drown in their own waste.

The drawing blew over 
the concrete wall
stained with what
the notes disappeared from
the dirt backyard
littered with when
the scribbling faded into
the narrow alley
clogged with why


- Max Stoltenberg