FINGER A METEOR

Needling me needling you
Bridled conversations
lost on capsized pantries
weevils in the cereal
nonsense between your punctuation
depressing expectations
fan doesn't work
stop flicking the fucking switch
sure, don't listen to me
when have you ever started?
there's a pallbearer
an undertaker for your grandmother's
hand more purple splotches
like thin islands 
above dormant vents
things sentences unfinished
no one stops me 
no one stops me


- Max Stoltenberg

OFFLINE TENSION

Inside an eyeglass case the coffin for the day dark with diseases and tripping over cadavers honey on genitals mixed with wasted time staring at images of curves sliced into many moments lost an ass of our times making hollow promises and that is what makes them so inviting until the shit down below has made its way up to the third floor we are moving into the attic surrounded by bad ideas discarded and less uneventful passages that provided friction over more sensitive patches wired for silence hushed by driving into the sunlight when you and your car have truly confirmed being under a magnifying glass.

She said, "He came."
The other she said, "I didn't want to know that."
She said, "Crashing down."
The other she said, "And you were just going to keep this to yourself?"
She said, "Until you asked that question."
The other she said, "I think what you mean is the question you asked yourself."
She said, "Isn't this supposed to be about what I say it means to me?"
The other she said, "You dreamed about going to the desert because you went to the desert."
She said, "It was a swamp."
The other she said, "I thought it was a desert."
She said, "Then it dries out and becomes a desert."
The other she said, "Everything in your life dries out."
She said, "I mean it was a desert, but it still looked swamp-like. I don't know what I mean."

Time for picking up the backyard
what the dog left behind
the birds, the bugs 
and their shit
like out of place punctuation
not so out of place
hemming and neglecting
a life half-done
almost completely over
much more to go
balloon air escaping
much slower than expected
obligatory speech
the thoughts in your head
leaking out until 
the skull and the grave
catch up with each other


- Max Stoltenberg