OUT OF HIS MIND

I won't look at her back at the wall and the cracks in her sentences how I have kept her on the floor the second floor and the light is on all day it seems she leaves it on and rest of the neighborhood knows about our usage so what is it to you to me I won't look at her back at the orange that fell on the rug and seeing the dark specks instead of plucking them off and getting rid of them I will take them I won't look at her back and take them to see the pillar on the back patio not the one on the North side the South one not the North the West and not the West the East perhaps South and lay them there carefully making sure not to jostle their sensitive nervous systems flooded with my sweat the sweat of my hands all that twiddling has made me recall the diseases that snuck up on me every night for the past several months and time has forgotten me and good riddance to this snuck up upon doldrum infested coffin-shaped excuse for a procrastinator withholding progress from their greedy paws to fling me into their pit of figures mannequins no numbers yes outside the parentheses again at last and it rarely never does.

From "At the South East Pillar"

Couldn't tell you where they were
but they were on their knees
if they had any
before the towering support
blocked out the part of the sky
they would have dried out under
miserable specks dark and minimized
to tell the truth
speaking so unnaturally
is what it meant
stars entered into it again
as an afterthought
the stars were an afterthought
smashed into one
narrow cognition
no effort
no matter
thin chance


- Max Stoltenberg

FEATURELESS

It was his least favorite thing to do to say to ask to try to point out as the car sped along the dark dirt road along the narrow side of the mountain the side of the die least likely to make any way that you can see yourself clear to put in a word for him for her or their salt crushed under the counter dispensed with along the narrow side bulging with regret and memories that overlap with torn chip bags inside out and empty haven't thrown them away keep forgetting and suppose you get there and tell him then what you've been already doing that and now he is taking the middle ground the one that keeps sinking making their asses collide into each other a folded sleepless canvas of asses.

She told me once about her nightmares had the same ones for a week at a time or several days thereabouts and she would paint her hair with meteors orange and smearing the world sitting on a rooftop each leg on a side of the family home to not feeling like much of anything what I wouldn't do to lounge with her there atop the sinking middle ground bent for emphasis the italics of what I wouldn't do the basic fundamental measurement of my existence.

"Slide closer to the door and then push it open."
"I am too busy scratching."
"Scratching what?"
"The same result."
"Petty was his middle first last name all of them it was silly to pronounce it at any speed. The only day I can recall with clarity the kind that is sharper than the highest definition is the shittiest. The one where I opened my mouth."

You don't notice
what I notice
that you haven't noticed
that you've never 
said or denied
was a big deal
hurtling towards the basement
punished down there
bumping into what 
mother what father
claimed they could afford
dripping it dripped already
and watch where you've sneaked 
around the dark center
touching what 
you don't notice
what I notice
that you haven't noticed
that you've never
said or denied


- Max Stoltenberg