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Back to the mirror
Back away from the mirror
Back into the mirror
Back against the mirror
Against the wall
Between the wall and the mirror
Between the mirror and the backing
on the back of the mirror
Inactive record
Mirror on mirror
glass grey licking
regressing into holes
in the faces in the background
ground interlude
stay down
get up
put together a response
hang it up
nearest hole
is furthest from the mind
Have you heard? Have you heard the one about the realtor who showed the couple a home and took a call on her cellphone and stepped outside leaving the two to look around until it was around time for the sun to go down the light to disappear the electricity was turned off a foreclosed space have you heard the realtor? are they close by or far away? have you heard? have you heard the one about the young woman who went into the kitchen another end of a day left out too long to cook another cut to dress up and take a chance let simmer to stand to cool into a dim upset in the failing light have you heard? Have you heard the one about the realtor who showed the couple she showed them?
"That's probably why it disappeared."
"The light or her?"
"That's probably why it dropped off the listing for a while until they did what they had to and put it back on."
"Until they did something or didn't do something."
"Did you have time to get around to the shopping today?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"I just do. Or need I say your time and how it gets eaten by the piranhas of responsibility are important to me?"
"The needless to say with their expressions that sink below the surface and rear their sagging heads again because they did what they had to do to cram them into whatever latest purpose they came up with."
"Did you get my zinc oxide?"
"You mean your Boudreaux's butt paste?"
"Yes, that, my degraded seamstress."
"No, I did not."
"No? Why not?"
"Did you write it down on the fridge?"
"Thought I did. Guess not."
"Degraded seamstress?"
"Fuck! What was that I bumped into?"
"Don't expect it to be the power button of some abandoned entertainment center with tenebrous music refilling the room."
"I don't. Circumstances always manage to be a little more than what I've lowered them to so it can blandly slink along the middle of the road and not tumble off into wrapping things up into a dark extinction."
Take it and stick it into the stomach stir it until the clouds settle into the branches of the trees leaves are pushed down towards the Earth below emptiness bulges out as streets tighten their grip stabbing with glass windows shattering into eyes filling with notes intercepted and passed from sneer to sneer hammered into capital letters and thrown over the fence to be whipped by the violence of traffic. If if you can if you still can take it and stick it into the stomach stir it until the clouds settle into the branches of the trees leaves are pushed down towards the Earth below.
"Did you take your pm dosage?"
"Not yet. I left my water in the car."
"I just don't want you to miss another pill. That'll make 4 out of 7 this week."
"4 out of 7. Enough to win a playoff and keep a depression on medium flame."
"Remember that time you were telling me that scary story when we were around that fire?"
"I didn't get to finish telling it because that was the last occasion you let me fix dinner."
"We never did redo the left side of the house."
"That's what we've been trying to move out of you know. I still see smoke curling about."
"You do not. Those are just little dust storms."
"What are those things scattered on the floor?"
"Charred contact paper probably."
"Not at our house - in this room. I keep kicking them around with my shoes. And what room is this?"
"Are you not wearing socks with your shoes? You know how they cut the backs of your heels."
"I ran out of socks. I haven't taken the bag down to the laundromat."
"I think this is or was either the game room or some unfinished art room."
"Someone's projecting their procrastination."
"Where is she? Does she sound nearby to you or has she wandered off into the backyard or maybe across the street to talk to the neighbors to warn them about us?"
"Will you stop? Just quiet down so we can listen for someone talking on their cellphone."
"For all this time? For hours?"
"She is a talker. Now listen for someone talking to someone else."
"It'll probably turn out to be someone talking to someone else next door or maybe it'll just be the sound of me talking to you because there is no one next door anymore or across the street or just me talking to myself because you've gotten sick of me and left me in this room alone all alone."
"I would never leave you. I couldn't find my way out."
"That's the best reason you've got?"
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry, too."
"And I'm still sorry."
"What is love?"
"I know I haven't said it since no that was when I thought of saying it and only thought it. That was when you walked into the sliding door and you thought it was open."
"Bent the frames of my glasses. What is love?"
"Love is two tongues reaching for each other in the dark."
"You never got to finish that scary story."
"Scary story? It was some true crime I read."
"Did you ever sell that?"
"Never could."
"That's too bad."
"Tossed it in the blue bin next to the bookcase."
- Max Stoltenberg
Half the distance
Half the baking instructions
Half the moon
Turning the other cheek
As the world rotates again
Comes around to another day
of the same shit pouched between
your ass and gum
Half to death
Who said it was helpful
Who cut the plug
Allowing the airs out of her face
Half the marked up way to the halfway point
Dismissal adjourned
Until enough talking past each other
Misery scuffs company floors
Hallways and their fading light bulbs
Where the dragging of feet
Crushed under the pressure
a proactive initiation for bloody toes
Brain blinking stars fall
by your eyes thoughts burn out
with dying sparks plunging
half the distance to the ground
covered in the same shit
comes around to another day
as the world rotates again
landing on the next losing slice of the wheel
Pulling up pants half way
to the mid-section
never recovering
guts retreating into caves of wasted nerves
Unable to obscure the exposed half-life
decaying adventures
breaking up into jobs
fractals of meaningless vision
lulled into expectations
vainly scattering bacteria
- Max Stoltenberg
Sky the double-edged razor
hugs faces with stubble raising questions
uprooting space with nicks and cuts
heat insults the back of the neck
clouds manufacture stillness
stranded under feet
odor for a towel undone
into holes looking upon nowhere
Backs of office chairs
reclining nooses stand up straight
across a thunderous sweeping off the table
amusing for no one
but parts of bodies that fall away
delaying for what now
it'll swing they will swing
until they fall away
and until then
Nurse recites something she saw in real life deader than a phony connection dial again wrong number no it was the right number and now you hung up and calling back has been put on the back-burner until the back-burner has been hooked up behind the building where they the ones who came by and carrying something blunt broke the glass and had to insist on carrying on something blunt broke the glass and had to insist they just might get out they just might get in they just might get by the ones who came by and carrying something blunt broke the glass and had to insist that the nurse recite something she saw in real life deader than a phony connection dial again wrong number no it was the right number and now you hung up and calling back has been put on the back-burner until the back-burner has been put on the back-burner hooked up behind the building where they the ones who came by and carrying something blunt broke the glass and had to insist on carrying on something blunt broke the glass and had to insist they just might get out they just might get in they just might get by the ones who came by and carrying something blunt broke the glass and had to insist that the nurse recite something she saw in real life deader than a phony connection.
"Why does it look like that?"
"What did you do to it?"
"You mean how did it get like this?"
"What happened?"
"I was in with the assistant maintenance coordinator and he dropped his nail-gun on my right foot."
"I thought you were asking me about your nose."
"I'm getting to that."
"Oh, does it come next after the nail-gun to the foot?"
"Actually, it comes before."
"Before?"
"I start with the most recent incident and work my way back."
"Use whatever works."
"That's the thing, though. It doesn't always work."
"I heard there was a sandwich on the roof."
"And this would be a demonstration of which one of your vast array of quirks?"
"This is me hopping off the boardwalk of a conversation when the other person is experiencing a breakdown in their approach."
"Seems more like a breakdown in my withdrawal."
"And how did it get like that?"
"What kind of sandwich was it?"
Let sleeping bags lie
have the whispering from inside them
tell all they want
that another told them all they wanted
and the wind molds
what cracks them up
into bits of wet sadness
only shadow cast on the dry ground
"And how did your breakdown in your withdrawal get like that?"
"It must have been when I was taking a piss and thought about what she was thinking and my insecurities that used to provide a nice attenuated echo to her chamber-like ensemble of brooding had deformed into an extra layer of her chafing one of her rear speakers that could no longer be rearranged or rewired but had to be disposed of."
"Is that before or after she dumped you?"
"I don't remember. All I can bring to mind is that while I was thinking this I had pissed on a great deal of the toilet seat and any potential for internalizing anything was lost in cleaning my own mess. I stopped standing up after that."
"I still thought you were asking me about your nose."
"Tell me a story."
"Did I tell you the one about the magician who tried to resist the temptation to reveal the secrets of his tricks and archived them?"
"Is this the one where the magician gave up magic and became an archivist?"
"You have heard that one. Then I don't have any new ones unless you want to hear one I haven't told in a while."
"Start with a more recent one and work your way back."
"It can only get better."
"Not always."
"They still haven't refilled the breath tape and trail mix machine."
Let sleeping bags lie
have the whispering from inside them
tell all they want
that another told them all they wanted
and the wind molds
what cracks them up
into bits of wet sadness
only shadow cast on the dry ground
- Max Stoltenberg
Because uncaused or not caused or just because nor unjust causes yet beyond what was gone over between them from outside their minds within those walls that surrounded them with ambitions that ended up in new dead ends. Yet and still not yet beyond what was gone over seemed gone and over was or wasn't quite completely gone nor completely over. Their ongoing basket tipped over and crushed their over and done with. And this led to paint talk of paint which led to the worst illnesses or nastiest looking injuries talk of the worst illnesses of nastiest looking injuries which led right back to paint talk of paint.
Gwen: I don't.
Mull: I don't either.
Gwen: It's difficult.
Mull: Especially difficult.
Gwen: Especially when it's someone else somewhere else.
Mull: Who were we speaking of again?
Gwen: Yeah, who were we speaking of again?
Mull: (pausing) That no this is getting to me.
Gwen: What about who?
Mull: Maybe it is that after all.
Gwen: Who?
Mull: No that mess of sticky notes over there.
Gwen: Sticky notes?
Mull: Yes, the sticky notes over there the big yellow mess of yellow feathers over there pasted against that monitor all that's left of a strange bird caught several messages ago.
Gwen: Do you think it's been long enough?
Mull: Maybe, but let's give it a little while longer.
Gwen: And what's a little while longer?
Mull: I say something and then you say something and then you say something and then that will be a little while longer.
Gwen: Why don't you have us alternating?
Mull: Alternating?
Gwen: You have me saying something two times in a row.
Mull: That's because I wanted to compensate you for me saying something first.
Gwen: That doesn't make sense for two reasons.
Mull: Is this going to be another one of your lists with numbered items?
Gwen: It's just barely more than 1.
Mull: What would be your minimum requirement for a list?
1. cellphone at the bottom of a pool infested with algae
2. a urine collection cup used for drinking coffee
3. brown top grey pants
4. grey top brown pants
5. desert
6. more desert
7. closed rest stop
8. more desert
9. need gas
10. got gas
11. lift left thigh
12. steer off of shoulder
13. next time
14. lift right thigh
15. end list
16. next time
17. lift left thigh
18. better sound quality
19. final notice
20. next time
21. toenail clippers
22. more desert
Mull: When you take meeting notes, do you try to make the letters fit in the squares?
Gwen: I don't use graph paper.
Mull: I thought you preferred graph paper.
Gwen: And who said I was taking meeting notes?
Mull: It was thrown into your lap, I know.
Gwen: Thrown? I'd be surprised if anyone makes that much movement. Preoccupied with forwarding shit around from one blood clot to another. It's assumed into my lap. Just like everything else it's assumed into my lap.
Mull: Franny doesn't complain about taking notes in in what department is that? They keep changing what it's called.
Gwen: That's because you haven't heard her complain like she does to me about the notes about the meetings about her boss about her job about her dick of a husband about whether or not to reject the null hypothesis about tracking space debris such as nosecone shrouds and hatch covers.
Mull: What is that? 7 items?
Gwen: 8 items if you break up space debris.
Mull: Breaking up space debris is hard to do.
Gwen: Do you think it's been long enough?
Mull: Maybe, but let's give it a little while longer.
Gwen: And what's a little while longer?
Mull: I say something and then you say something and then you say something and then that will be a little while longer.
Gwen: Why don't you have us alternating?
Mull: Alternating?
Gwen: You have me saying something two times in a row.
Mull: That's because I wanted to compensate you for me saying something first.
Gwen: That doesn't make sense for two reasons.
Mull: Is this going to be another one of your lists with numbered items?
Gwen: It's just barely more than 1.
Mull: What would be your minimum requirement for a list?
37. Separate ways
38. Visiting the same planet
39. Everyday putting shoes on
40. Preventing roots from
41. one step after another
42. stopped making faces
43. end list
44. stopped making faces
45. knock it off
46. might as well
47. they have all
48. been knocked off
Mull: Where are you going?
Gwen: I'm going to make a try of it to the next office.
Mull: So much for my measurements.
Gwen: Now's the time to go while the lens is pointed the other direction.
Mull: I'm coming. There we made it. Whose egg carton of an office is this?
Gwen: It's the same size as yours.
Mull: Seems smaller with all the crap they have in here.
Gwen: Those are procedures manuals.
Mull: Is this Blepperitsky's office?
Gwen: Blepperitsky is two more offices down make a right at the copier room and then take the elevator down 6 flights.
Mull: Couldn't we just head straight for the elevator and have done with it?
Gwen: Too risky. What is that?
Mull: They have a bird with yellow feathers also.
Gwen: No, that sound you're making.
Mull: I'm running my fingers along the sticky notes.
Gwen: You're making a sound in your mouth with your saliva.
Mull: Oh, I was trying to recreate what it was like when it used to rain. Nostalgic, eh?
Gwen: That does not sound like rain.
Mull: I was going for a steady downpour.
Gwen: It sounds more like after your cough medicine has kicked in.
Mull: This is interesting (pulling off a sticky note and reading it).
Gwen: What does it say?
Mull: It says, "Do you remember leaves?"
Gwen: That doesn't make sense for 3 reasons. There, I've added an item to the list.
Mull: Well, do you?
Gwen: Do I what?
Mull: Do you remember leaves?
Gwen: No. That's a stupid question. And don't make any repulsive attempts at weather phenomena with your body.
Mull: With nothing but needles and thorns you'd think that you'd at least be with me on this.
Gwen: He leaves she leaves she leaves is more like it. You know, metaphysics.
Mull: How is that metaphysics?
Gwen: The basic foundational structure of reality.
Mull: Don't forget to include the other vital building blocks.
Gwen: Is this is where you go on about particle physics or biological approaches to information?
Mull: I was going to say embarrassment. Can't leave out embarrassing moments strung together with all those other blocks of time waiting for others to have their embarrassing moments.
Gwen: Do you think it's been long enough?
Mull: Maybe, but let's give it a little while longer.
- Max Stoltenberg
Blink tight
Eyes almost refuse to open
Nut thermometer drops into the lap
of emptiness overlooked
harshly eccentric
and carved into a rigid daze
sitting at a slumped attention
fucking morning
An image virus
Stick figures drawn in the layer of vomit
Legs and arms toppled
Felled park she wants to return to
for caressing a slipped disk
for a slipped tongue
slip of the tongue
tonguing a slip
fucking morning
another day of
what to call it
what
to call it
another day of
looking up and the thumb this time
digging a smile into the face
that never opens
having some
having some day
having some difficulty
logging into it
another day of
what to call it
what
to call it
- Max Stoltenberg
If that if that's how they want to put it how they put it together their thing guess it's their thing put kept together with things those connecting things making connections all and all of them growing growing closer and closer together and this is coming from one bag to another if that if that's how they want to put it how they want to put it together their thing guess it's their thing put kept together with things those connecting things making connections all and all of them growing growing closer and closer together and this is coming from one bag to another each coming to this point a lot alike in its own way coming with all that coming together all that back to back back to basics getting on each other's backs if that if that's how they want to put it how they put it together their thing guess it's their thing put kept together how together with those connecting things making connections all and all of them growing growing closer and closer together and this is coming from one bag to another each coming to this point a lot alike in its own way coming with all that coming together all that back to back back to basics getting on each other's backs if that if that's how they want to put it together.
They tucked themselves in for the night between one day and the next between the anticipation of the future and the disappointment of when it finally arrived between the desert and the dump between the expanding and narrowing shafts between the dry and waxed tallow lips between the oiled cogs and the parts they played.
"Is my hand stuck in your hair?"
"Is one of my hairs wrapped around one of your knuckles?"
"Has my coffee breath squelched your scent?"
"Have I underestimated my body or overestimated our surroundings?"
"Are we asking too many questions?"
"Am I not giving good enough answers?"
"How about I move my hand?"
"What if I turn my head this way?"
"There. It came undone. That was fun."
"Untangling?"
"Well, that, too, but I meant that we were asking continual questions."
"Were we?"
"Yes, I think so, and you can stop now. OK?"
"Are we going on with the questions or are you actually inquiring about me?"
"What was that?"
"I said are we going on with the questions or -"
"No, did you hear that?"
"Is this where you start again about the footsteps and those from above looking down around the storm drains for us?"
"Am I still the only one who notices it?"
"Do we only notice anything when our waste mixes with the other's?"
"Is it that I'm exaggerating what little reflection I imagine I can muster?"
"Is that what we're calling it now? Can we point our fingers at it and say that's reflective thought when it's really more a matter of obsession with disentangling and how things reflect on us?"
"Is that what you think of my obsession with you?"
"Is that what you're obsessed with? Are you more obsessed with sticking your penetrating questions in and out of me or that my stack of shit might fall over and get confused with yours? Do you really like my hair like this when we don't know when I'll ever be able to wash it again? Is anything I'm saying not ending up in one of your parentheses? With so little room in this dark smelly hole how often do I show up in your mind?"
They tucked themselves in for the night between one day and the next between the anticipation of the future and the disappointment of when it finally arrived between the desert and the dump between the expanding and narrowing shafts between the dry and waxed tallow lips between the oiled cogs and the parts they played if that if that's how they want to put it how they put it together their thing guess it's their thing put kept together how together with those connecting things making connections all and all of them growing growing closer and closer together and this is coming from one bag to another each coming to this point a lot alike in its own way coming with all that coming together all that back to back back to basics getting on each other's backs slipping and falling off of each other to end up back together at the bottom of the grease trap all and all of them all of those grease traps growing growing closer and closer together growing into one another if that if that's how they want to put it how they put it together.
- Max Stoltenberg
Pulling on the tag ripping another tear in the back of the shirt stop there's a tag and its directions can't read them must read them stop there's a tag lost hold of it and its directions can't read them can't make them out making out there was that tree against it against her why why did things end up against her not this this voice this is a voice the sound tapping on the glass reflecting that tree there was that tree against it against her why why did things end up against her not this this voice pulling on the tag ripping another tear in the back of the shirt stop there's a tag and its directions can't read them must read them stop there's a tag lost hold of it and its directions can't read them can't make them out making out there was that tree against it against her why why did things end up against her?
Have become so manageable fuck what's on the inside gets blown away from off the top before the ride is over what a cut remember before you forget to use a condiment say what the day is and maybe maybe recall dinner or was it lunch lunch lost that remember recall what you do what have you done what have you become have become so manageable fuck what's on the inside gets blown away from off the top before the ride is over what a cut remember before you forget to use a condiment say what the day is and maybe maybe recall dinner or was it lunch lunch lost that remember recall what you do what have you done what have you become have become so manageable.
Came across her and coming to my senses asked her no told her of the storage facility a building with windows that looked upon metal doors that rolled down to shoulders where hair hands once tangled into children so much more so much more articulate than me came across her and coming to my senses told her no asked her where she was coming from and she said, "Divorced."
"I'm sorry."
"No, it's a good thing."
Have become so manageable fuck what's on the inside gets blown away from off the top before the ride is over what a cut remember before you forget to use a condiment say what the day is and maybe maybe recall dinner or was it lunch lunch lost that remember recall what you do what have you done what have you become have become so manageable fuck what's on the inside gets blown away from off the top before the ride is over what a cut remember before you forget to use a condiment say what the day is and maybe maybe recall dinner or was it lunch lunch lost that remember recall what you do what have you done what have you become have become so manageable.
Came across her and coming to my senses asked her no told her of the storage facility a building with windows that looked upon metal doors that rolled down to shoulders where hair hands once tangled into children so much more so much more articulate than me came across her and coming to my senses told her no asked her where she was coming from and she said, "Divorced."
"And that's a good thing?"
"No, the asshole had to make it such a prolonged nightmare of unending torture."
Pulling on the tag ripping another tear in the back of the shirt stop there's a tag and its directions can't read them must read them stop there's a tag lost hold of it and its directions can't read them can't make them out making out there was that tree against it against her why why did things end up against her not this this voice this is a voice the sound tapping on the glass reflecting that tree there was that tree against it against her why why did things end up against her not this this voice pulling on the tag ripping another tear in the back of the shirt stop there's a tag and its directions can't read them must read them stop there's a tag lost hold of it and its directions can't read them can't make them out making out there was that tree against it against her why why did things end up against her?
- Max Stoltenberg
