IN A CHAIR

There's a switch when the mountain and its red clouds turn to purple hurrying the night along to darken it all in and can't as the enormous shadow still sits there.  There's a switch somewhere to turn it all off.  Someone somewhere.  All this time nothing was being saved.  It all just sat there while in the middle of or in the considerably off center of nowhere as its orbital tentacles wrap around another layer outer layer around as so many are crushed closer together feeling smaller together what a world there's a switch somewhere to turn it all off.  Don't be like that as it may be that as it may not be like that it will be like that longer than it is what it is.


There's a switch and it goes against all matter in a different direction from the direction it had changed from after they changed their minds so direct so over and out behind the behind the behind and their moving forward and they are moving forward behind the behind the behind as the rest does not move to be moved when the mountain and its red clouds turn to purple hurrying the night along to darken it all in and can't as the enormous shadow still sits there.  There's a switch somewhere to turn it all off.  


In a chair the picking of the nose now there's a piece that could use a dose in the blue rooms with blue walls and lines and angles intersecting into machines for sitting in a chair the picking of the nose now there's a piece that could use a dose in the blue rooms with blue walls and lines and angles intersecting into machines as one of those smaller softer fragments and a stickier bit of information and a hand scratching against the partition smears the snot across the documents that fall from the corners of their mouths its mouth their mouths sitting in a chair digging an elbow into the smears digging in dig in.  No place in its side to place a hand or a foot no plug no switch no color.  Drib and drab side by side in the rotation of the wheel at the stay of execution.


Blinking at each other
Staring into faces
with astonishment
that twists their heads
into shapes no longer recognizable


pages fall out of the scrapbook
along the off ramp
missed a mile back


Blinking in time
to little switches
spreading them out


Blinking in time
to little switches
spreading them out 
further apart


She wrote them down what good did it do as she locked what she wrote in a box.  She wrote them down what good did it do as she took the box back.  She wrote them down what good did it do as she took the box back that way.  She wrote them down what good did it do as she took the box back that way she had come.  Some say it was holes some say it was cracks or the body of water decided upon.  She wrote them down what good did it do as she took the box back that way she had come.  What good did it do that way she had come behind the behind the behind and their moving forward and they are moving forward behind the behind the behind as the rest does not move to be moved when the mountain and its red clouds turn to purple hurrying the night along to darken it all in and can't as the enormous shadow still sits there.  




- Max Stoltenberg

ON THE STEPS WITH DEAD FLIES

Eyes are a mouth with hands that are somewhere out of the frame.  Seeing is reaching and just moving around.  Perhaps nothing of the kind less kind these these days flirt with stranded canoes.  Fell into it for giving up and lying down when the mouth either leaks bitter spit or starts running some tape stuck with the negative glow of shadows on another retina didn't know it was back behind the tabled or discarded or queued for deletion or tuna can lids from that visit to the platform and its cancelled departures running a larval picture show.  Pillow wrapping around the nape and tucked into the corners of the peripheral voice lollygagged into indifferent steerage.  Shouting not shouting being picked up by some tape stuck.  Stop right there.


"Shouting?  I wasn't shouting."


"Who said you were shouting?" corrected the thick-voiced man chewing on a slice of green pepper.


"Perhaps I was too emphatic."


"Nothing in bold, nothing in italics, nothing underlined or capitalized.  Who said you were saying anything at all?" corrected the thick-voiced man who sounded more narrow after a slight correction chugging on a tall as well as wide silo of soda.


"I just thought maybe you were thinking there was a slight peak in inflection somewhere in there might have distracted you from what you were doing."


"Have you heard the one about the actresses backstage during an intermission of their play?"


"Is that the one where they have some chess players join them to solve some mating problems?"


"No, not even close.  Distant, in fact, from what's, in fact, being conveyed as if you've been, in fact, unawares all your life while the rest of humanity has been finishing and refinishing things while you let yourself, in fact, stay in the kitchen in the heat, in fact, taking it lying down, and, in fact, getting swept into the drain while, in fact, the stopper is placed rather snugly.  Making stoppers more snugly recently to prevent the likes of you from making a comeback, in fact."


"I thought one of the chess players helps them figure out a mate in 5 or maybe it was only 4."


"Are just imaginary numbers imaginary or all numbers?  Aren't numbers made up to represent amounts of objects?  Who cares?  Is it just those who made them up or those who are following along or those who are just following?  I think I indicated that before or didn't I?"


"I don't quite follow."


"Of course you don't.  Your holes are riddled with tab strokes taking you down another rabbit hole that comes out onto a misty and prematurely ended scenario on a hastily erected walkway over a desert chasm.  Or, in fact, perhaps, your riddles are holed up in some unkempt room unjustifiably oversupplied and thoughtlessly undermaintained where imagined pain is oversympathized with while it is unimaginably sliced from my pie, in fact, I can feel the slicing.  Like a spiral-cut ham packed for leftovers upside-down.  All the slices are on the bottom.  To slime these hands and to have to stoop to more slicing.  In fact, my pain requires the much needed redirecting of witnessing other people truly make their way through genuine obstacles as they are buffeted about like objects and come to a much deserved rest in pools of foam.  And do they take it lying down?  No, in fact, they don't even bother with wasting their time waiting on orientation to show up, and they re-emerge into the spotlight of the however many minutes (and I will forego a number here, in fact) of fame that has been made increasingly affordable to stimulate participation.  Who would have thought that better discounting would result in so many staying put to be involved.  Now that's entertainment!"


"I -"


"Thoughtless.  That's all I will say about it.  Thoughtless.  In fact, come to think of it, those weren't my questions at all.  The actresses backstage during the intermission of their play which I recall was about a lesbian bakery where they stick into the dough either maple leaves flattened between pages of an out of date medical dictionary or, in fact, if I recall, it might have been just body parts.  Despite the seasoning, they are all startled backstage when one of those theater masks thumps on the floor.  Don't ask if it was the tragic or comic face that fell.  When people are kept in their place they see less of the ocean and the waves  and its refutations toward the sky and everything else.  If you have to extend your intermission for whatever excuse or complaint you have regarding this melancholic existence then maybe you are demonstrating that you were destined for the backstage.  The fallen mask instigates dialogue between the actresses about lost loves and dreams.  I am trying to summon up how the discussion was allocated but it was not evenly I can assure you.  I can't stomach when one person monopolizes all of the conversation.  The enormity and volume, and particularly, quality of their voice makes my organs start to fail.  One of them speaks as if shouting yet not shouting."


"Nostrils," one of them backstage said, "who would have  thought," she said, "that looking down at a dirty backstage floor and into the abyss of artificial nostrils would make me think of all the tissue that was shared between us and how it was the sickness and tears that at least pre-empted all the shit we told ourselves with silence.  Each took turns in its own moratorium in a relentless diarrhea of programming.  From then on, every relationship was characterized by more flights of fancy and by that I mean more and more time consuming video clips of stage mishaps.  A larger and larger percentage was taken up with actors and actresses taking turns being whipped around their imaginary worlds, ripped out of their beds, crashing into walls, and colliding into windows and doors that were supposed to open.  They improvised their scripts to where they saw flying as a destructive activity and countered any encouragement to an adventure with sarcasm.  Their only speculations left to them was more sarcasm muttered in the dark on a stage where the latest collapsing wall had to be impetuously reinforced."


"I don't remember if any of the others said anything else.  They probably did or probably didn't.  It's hard when thinking of attempting to consider any of the others, the others backstage."


Seeing is reaching and just moving around.  Perhaps nothing of the kind less kind these these days flirt with stranded canoes.  Fell into it for giving up.




- Max Stoltenberg

SEEING STARS

The mind is scraping against low hanging tree branches.  Lines are blurry and defronting into air falling between monotony and discomfort. Waking up while walking along the sidewalk and stopping to notice puffy eyelids in a mirror leaning against a overflowing garbage bin. "Tough to get out of a kneeling position once the legs get that bent the rest of the thing gets pulled down to the basement underneath one's waste," were the thoughts that leaked out in an incontinent betrayal of muted erasures.  


Each of the following musings could be discovered as defaced playing cards on the TV trays haphazardly assembled between sides of a dialogue collapsing into the cardboard for recycling.  Not a fan not for some time not enough time to not be a fan of anything everything pulling for something until clothes are kept on for some time not enough time to not be a fan of anything everything pulling for something pulling on this body until clothes are kept on for some time enough time always plenty of time to deteriorate into an aversive wilting presentation of presence almost almost not. 


Ends means that ending after it ends means over after it ends means that ending after after lost the place place place the means end it ends after it ends addressing replies before it gets cancelled ends means that ending after it ends means addressing replies before it gets cancelled ends before it gets it after it ends addressing replies before it gets on the toilet is that where after lost the place place place on the toilet still warm no hot sharp squeezing still more in there after lost the place place place on the toilet still warm no hot sharp squeezing its going up its going down make up its mind what mind squeezing still more in there long giving up on synonyms the same words will swirl around until the next flushing plunger watching the man beating her with a plunger was it?  Was it a plunger?  He sure made her uglier with every hit.  Never saw rubber bounce so little and leave so much.  Was it a plunger?  For all the waste that gets pulled back.  Pulling and pushing lost the place place place.


Measurements for what?  Stars are reflected in the sunglass lens that has popped out.  The other the other is gone and only reveals the dirt where nothing grows in measurements for what?  For what?  Don't ask.  It pulls and begs the asking stripping down to the begging for this it has come to this.  That over there away don't ask it pulls and begs the asking stripping down to the begging for this it has come to this.  Gouging them out.  Plucky now cover the Earth in trash to fit the mirror for disposing of its glass and the face behind dubbing silence with an all too familiar language too familiar marking the cards.  Plucky now cover the Earth in trash to fit the mirror for disposing.  Measurements for what?  For what?  Don't ask.


Wilting presence almost almost not and the pulling desists for some time not enough time until the pulling continues not a fan of hands and handouts and all the pulling that comes with them and them and their pulling for something so many fans and their pages and pages and books and books and buildings and buildings of fans all pulling the rest of the world until it breaks bent legs and crumpled bodies to break away as the exposed roots of the world dangle until they are pulled back into the astro turf for replacing knees replacing legs replacing hips replacing hearts replacing eyes replacing minds not a fan of donors not a fan for some time enough time for not being a fan of donors pulling shoulders that want their shrugs want their slump towards the other side of the world away from the pulling everything pulling for something not a fan for some time not enough time to not be a fan of the pulling on cold metal bars of glass doors that are closed and shake for pushing pushing and pulling in out open closed open all hours for running out and pulling and pushing and automatically refilling and replacing parts and replacing wholes only parts pulling for the whole thing things pulling and pushing not a fan for some time not enough time for not being a fan a fan of not being pulling back the dangling roots the exposed roots pulled back in and covered in shit fertilized for replacing for rushing air escaping with the wind knocked out of lungs not a fan for some time not enough time for not being a fan a fan of not being pulled back in for reviving not a fan not enough time in a slump too much time until its noticed and the pulling the braided rope thickened with threats refuses to break always refusing as bodies break and get replaced not a fan gnawing on the vinculum at the midpoint just assigned just trademarked the fool on either end.




- Max Stoltenberg

DRAFT

The draft killed the back against the tent with the canvas that came away from the icy mountain the canvas that got away from the brain and left crumbs all over the lap and gut.  The draft killed the back against the canvas the brain against the body the draft killed it gradually then swiftly then slower than gradually and fooled the subject into the next draft that killed another part of the subject another  part of it.  Cold quiet desperate frostbit hands in the pockets finding another rock to let fall and clack on the rocky floor once again upon another time upon the rocky bottom of it all.


The draft killed in the direction of the same frequency of the same tendency towards coming back around the back as in back to the back draft killed against the tent with the canvas beaten by the wind into a dazed heaviness anchored to the rocky floor while everything else around the subject at hand frostbit hands and inside the head came away the more it tried to come away break away up and through it stayed anchored in a lightheaded frozen balloon of a face tied in a knot at the neck where was the ice pick?


That can't be it it can't be that the draft killed it and that's how it is for the arrowhead further unburied by a stumble it came away from its grave to be included for a drift from anchor to anchor through ways and means not its own dragged along by faces tied into knots at the neck.  Dazed heaviness returning to coal-filled skin and bones for the next variation of adjustments made at the last moment until replaced by another.  That can't be it it can't be that the draft killed it and that's how it is for the arrowhead further unburied by a stumble it came away from its grave to be included for a drift from anchor to anchor catch their drift like a cold stitched together with drafts that envelops you for a lifetime and then some shipped in boxes of envelopes sealed and dripping with the adhesive of procedures and the spit of forked faces tied up in knots at the neck.


Where was that pick that word that was picked from the ice coating the inside of the head?  Fell through the cracks in the knotty subjects looking up through the glass of the ice underneath where they were have been left in too long to drift from anchor to anchor from port to port on the sides of the laptops from port to port at the bottoms of their walls from wall to wall coming away from the Earth frozen over to preserve the decay.  Left in too long left out too long just scratching the surface clawing at the ceiling underneath controlled for less drift from anchor to anchor from port to port at the bottoms of their walls from wall to wall coming away from the Earth frozen over to preserve the decay.


Under a crocheted blanket where gaps let out sleep and let in daggers of dim life the thread is fraying between patterns that cannot be untangled from the clouded expressions of the cratered eyes that bore into the spaces leading down under crocheted linen laid out over another draft put off until another day that arrives too soon with shaking and nausea as tea mixes in the gut still covered with crumbs another revision put off this dull ache will shove against all language before it mingles with the rayless frozen dust within the cratered sockets from which muted knocks and thuds can be heard choked out of the structure just outside that never reposes.


That can't be it it can't be that to be the horror of being in the story told to the subjects in the dark of the tent of the cell for the subjects in the dark to come away with the draft the draft that killed the backs of the subjects with backs against the draft only place left to sit in the dark left out too long to be enlightened by the cremating flame that spread beneath dead asses killed by the open hands opened to the book opened to the desert opened to the rest of the planet frozen over to preserve the decay.  


The canvas remains against the draft and its dark cold the canvas remains bare to shield the bodies within the bodies the subjects of bodies the subjects of stories told in the dark around the cremating flame burning on both sides of the cell wall keeping bodies against the dark of the night's void and the light of day where the cremating flame and another collaborative draft that tears away what springs what steps what marks in the ground remain coming away in the draft exhumed from graves into shiftless indecision between the rifts of padded walls cushioning inexorable revisions with less gaps sewn by machines into the next release of stuffed animals packed with stuffing left out and left in too long coming away with more gaps to be sewn shut into the canvas remaining against the draft and its dark cold.




- Max Stoltenberg

UP TO HERE

Mumbling outside in the other vicinity of a pulled abdominal. Spelling mistakes, spelling errors and their over-corrections can prevent or cannot promote a sentence from finishing to finish with a shine that comes from showing up day after day as that shine lets other elements manage things into a smoother and duller feeding of the parts through the tracks hardening tracks of hardened people and animals parched after fainter and fainter reproductions can't make it out not a word for the life of a gastrotrich.  Not a word of it.  Maybe one or two but like that helps.  


Shouting filled with passion rage passionate rage followed by some response of a fruity nature a passion fruit ripe with rotting furry carpeting with invocations of the son of a bitch half-remembering lines from a sad stanza tanked full of wasted pursuits of lashes waving their indifference that came out to here where the stanza passing on its fainter reproduction as it passes its passing on underneath the wheels managing turning their turning keeping it all on the field and until they are ready for more heads to land in the laps of the spectators in the next row and their anticipatory airs can't wait to take their next row their next imbibing to embellish their anticipatory airs deadening the impact as breaths are taken away by the ever redirecting airbags.  Can't make it out not a word for the life of a gastrotrich.  Not a word of it.  Maybe one or two almost maybe two just maybe one if that but like that really makes it come out to anything.


Whispering in the alley over in the next neighborhood up close to the glass the glass of the window of the van blown out from the inside blown out towards another world separated by larger space debris if they'd just let him finish his question his suggestion of what he thinks it is so tired those wheels that keep turning their turning and not in the mood for his question separated by larger space debris if they'd just let him finish his question his suggestion dismissed into another room in another neighborhood emptied for the scurrying of little feet insect and little minds occupied to compare the heights they can clamber upon the mounds of what has made it up to here in the estimations of the irritated nerves separated by larger space debris just let her finish her question her suggestion of what she thinks it is so tired those wheels that keep turning their turning each turn separated by larger space debris if they'd just let her finish her question her observation of the bigger eyes that only come up to here on the chest of the spectators in the next row and their anticipatory airs can't wait to take their next row their next imbibing to embellish their anticipatory airs deadening the impact as breaths are taken away by the ever redirecting airbags.  Can't make it out not a word for the life of a gastrotrich.  Not a word of it.  Maybe one or two almost maybe two just maybe one if that but like that really makes it come out to anything.




- Max Stoltenberg

IS THAT RIGHT?

Answering someone else's phone when they are not around to hand the phone to the conversation to the conversation what a thing with its icicles dripping from the gutters hanging there to hang on left hanging as fading vapors on into the disappearing acts of what has been written for no one answering someone else's phone when they are not around to hand the at hand look no hands as the ride takes this nobody into the next disappearing act.

"Be right there."
"When?"
"In a little bit."

Horses stream across the river that runs through her eyes without anymore patience without anymore endings just her eyes watering and drying and watering and drying into a scratchy breeze that brings another chapter that doesn't belong there for her to find another story or maybe another paragraph to tuck her frozen feet underneath a shrinking blanket as darkness slips under sheets of snow in pictures lost to her mind deleted when they are not around to hand the phone to the conversation to the conversation what a thing.

"When?"
"When my stomach settles."
"Settles for what?"
"When it settles down."
"What's up inside your stomach?"
"Too much that happens outside it."
"Or that doesn't happen?"

Stuffed animals in the backyard left around the small plastic picnic bench close to the ground close to the proximity of making things up to talk about on pretend phones answering someone else's phone when they are not around no one around to interrupt conversations between little mouths and mouths that never move mouths that never have holes to fall into to get sucked into close to the ground close to the proximity of making things up to talk about on pretend phones answering someone else's phone when they are not around to interrupt with their holes that slurp and bite small words chew them up and stitch them with needling into longer sentences that accumulate to the end of the world and come around again for nothing different.

"Is that right?"
"Is what right?"
"Can I listen to your stomach?"
"You'll only hear dinner talking."
"Between the food."
"What's between the food?"
"Gas."

The wind the hot wind the cold wind in alternating intervals spread further apart by hands that never pick up the call from voices squeezed by beginnings and endings of conversations narrowed by armies of information that huddle together on the head of a pin needling into longer sentences that accumulate to the end of the world and come around again for nothing different different for nothing.

"What did you say?"
"Did I say something?"
"How can you not know if you said something?  Even though you may not always give me permission I still listen to what you say."
"Why would I do that?"
"I don't know."
"Neither do I."

The simpler the book the thicker the words and images the harder it is to turn the pages.  thicker dull the wet light drops of mandibles with spit on mirrors for a wiping forgotten and a compelled forgiveness smeared for the heels of the palms applying the brakes cracking the forehead on the edge of the counter.  can't get a grip on anything between thicker pages.  can't get a grip.

"Can you tell me a story?"
"After I fill your water bottle."
"Can you fill my water bottle after you tell me a story?"
"After I empty out your water bottle and give you all fresh new water."
"I want to finish it myself."
"There's something floating in it."
"Is it a bug?"
"What did you do?"
"Tell me a story."
"What did you do?"
"Tell me a story."
"Pick a book.  One from the lower shelf.  We haven't read one of those in a couple of weeks."
"Tell me a story."
"I will.  Pick me a book.  Lower shelf."
"No, tell me what you did.  Once.  And don't do anymore."
"The bloody nose."
"Did you tell me this before?  I think you told me this before."
"No, I haven't.  The bloody nose and I capitalize nothing."
"What does that mean?"
"Just let me continue."

Doorstep door frame framing not entrances but exits or both where coming in and going out makes for a one way ticket to less and nothing to redeem either but perhaps maybe only just yet a tiny slightly pressed insistence not even on uneven ground you know how it is or perhaps not even about the uneven ground that it how it is over your head or has slipped out the back for playing in alleys where large dark faces atop hard walls empty themselves more on what cuts short its play down below running off to reclaim their one way ticket to less and nothing to redeem either but perhaps maybe only just yet a tiny slightly pressed insistence not even on uneven ground.

"He or it might have even been me who picked at it poked at it too much and made it bleed.  It had that smell that bloody smell that's like the inside of some room with messy walls that is either falling in on you before you break open."
"Like the astronaut who had the alien worm inside him and his chest exploded and it came out growled and slid across some vegetables or it could have been lettuce."
"And you wipe your nose and get all this thick red blood all over your hand and arm."
"The neighbor across the street showed me his tumor in his arm it looked like he had an orange inside.  Made him look as if he had two elbows."
"Went into the garage and found the toolbox where there were pliers to clamp the nose shut and stop the flow of blood."
"Will this help me sleep?"
"All I could find was something metal.  That's all there is now metal things.  To stop the flow of blood.  Funny the flow of blood it makes you see funny things especially the closer you get to death and then you come back because it keeps flowing."
"I was asleep and then I woke up.  Did you say something funny?  So much about blood.  I'm falling asleep anyway.  Do you ever wish you didn't grab the pliers?"
"Bloody wishful thinking."

Horses stream across the river that runs through her eyes without anymore patience without anymore endings just her eyes watering and drying and watering and drying into a scratchy breeze that brings another chapter that doesn't belong there for her to find another story or maybe another paragraph to tuck her frozen feet underneath a shrinking blanket as darkness slips under sheets of snow in pictures lost to her mind deleted when they are not around to hand the phone to the conversation to the conversation what a thing.


- Max Stoltenberg

AT THE END OF THE DAY

At the end of the day this day that day the next has pretty much very much come and gone and returned and vanquished tomorrow, oh, shit.  Another sharp pain in the front cover story getting peeled away to make way for the back pain back to the end of the day this day that day the next has pretty much very much come and gone and returned and vanquished tomorrow's next day afterwards for the place afterwards placing low energy below the bar where the chips fall where the crumbs fall where the rain strokes the sky and falls elsewhere at the end of the day this day that day the next has pretty much very much come and gone and returned and vanquished tomorrow with its returns with its nonsense numbly gargling blunted sense in this glass of wine that glass on the table at the end of the table at the end of the day this day that day the next has pretty much very much come and gone and returned and vanquished tomorrow can't catch up with it the glass dropping off the end of the table afterwards for the place afterwards placing low energy below the bar where the chips fall where the crumbs fall where the rain strokes the sky and falls elsewhere at the end of the day at the end of the table that extends for that without contrast without difference without extension without extending much else much at all all day at the end of the day this day that day the next has pretty much at the end of the day waited until the end for the pretty much hands that held hands that moved hair like a curtain much like a curtain pretty much like a curtain very much like a pretty dress curtain across a tidal pool of blue eyes that one waits until the end of the day to address that at the end of the shore melted into the sand and muddied hands indecisive hands held over a sink that waits at the end of the day this day that day the next has pretty much very much come and gone and returned and vanquished tomorrow can't reach out to the curtain for any additional performances of the cricket escaping the turning pages thickening gathering pages until at the end of the day this or that day where the volume and its leanings make way for the back where catastrophe forms and cancels out the cricket and cancels any additional performances without extension without contrast without difference at the end of the table at the last glance of the last glass of the last time returning and vanquishing tomorrow knocking off all else at the end of the table at the end of the day this day that day the next has pretty much very much come and gone and returning and vanquishing tomorrow and the next day and the next day at the end a later end and a dragged out end and a drawn out dragging through the cracks through the blinds through the recycling through the box-cutters and between yellowed teeth of sand and mud and rain that strokes the sky and falls elsewhere.  




- Max Stoltenberg