BRANCHES OF DEPRIVATION

If the air did not move
too much
If the jacket with holes in it
did not point out the sores
too much
If the never married
avoided being noticed
too much
the semblance of the finite
touched down on the dead phone
only a tad
pent up grandiloquent interpreter
turn around turn away 
before it is too soon
nasty beating prints its splatter
on the worksheets
over a reactor 
like you 
like them
she was doing it
turning 
and then it became so important 
to mention the missing information
passed by the window outside
who said it was attached to the house
or the house was attached to who said
who said
she was doing it
turning 
and then it became so important 
to mention the missing information
passed by the park
dug out of the food 
too old

Turn that off it keeps beeping and pretending to be a song to someone to something more like it it likes itself more than can be stuck with a weakening magnet to the fridge out back behind the where did that go turned off to keeping anything worth beeping yourself with your fingers with your hands up to the armpits the hairs are what hurts fuck the muscles in the independent nonsense of the ship sinking again why was it brought up in meaningless conversation where the absent half is the part of that building that used to be used to be there right over there part of that building kicked out by feet stinking of organ peddles hollow measures counting on black skirts on folding chairs where heads used to shake out great lengths they went to she went turn that off before the what if it wraps around your waist your mouth don't think about it turn turn that off turn
she was doing it
turning 
and then it became so important 
to mention the missing information
passed by the window outside
who said it was attached to the house
or the house was attached to who said
who said

In the land of interruptions they came upon a have you heard how she cursed at him again for his inability to pay attention especially when she was discussing she wasn't discussing she was retelling what she heard when she was very put out on the front steps after she had stepped down and her feet having forgotten her shoes or socks forgotten her slippers they were pretty fucking big and she had stepped down and her feet she kept walking in her barefeet back on Earth even though she and he had been on Earth the whole time while she lived if you can put it that with her having a what we'll try to crank out the expression while we do the thing the tangling the air motions with our hands these hands never mind put that back after when she was very put out if you must it was how the spinner landed on that house that crazy house with this man not this man that man however she's insisting and she looks very convincing when she insists the way of tugging on the edges of words to make them stand out stand up and not fall over like just about all the ones I've been using up until down she stepped down after when she was very put out.

"I have a habit," Porter went on as she dug in her pocket carefully for a cigarette.
"Which you're going to demonstrate for me," quipped Liverspots rolling dice in a box he had placed on top of a rock.
"Not this," she said convinced she had settled upon one in her pocket.
"Are you going to break it?" Liverspots asked trying to rid himself of the image of the toy spaceship the day it stopped working and the lights that didn't flash anymore and the ramp that would no longer lower to this alien planet this current alien planet.
"Break it? No. It wouldn't be a habit if I could break it," said Porter tilting her head curiously at the strange shapes formed by various garbage lying about that seemed to portray some type of damaged reed instrument receiving fellatio from a hard to narrow down polygon.
"What's in your pocket. Are you going to break it?" asked Liverspots pointing with his left index finger and crouching down to examine the dice he had rolled after remembering they had been lying there in the box on the rock.
"They have a tendency to break more often than not," complained Porter sniffing while toggling between musings of a not so distant stench and a bloody nose from overly enthusiastic quarrying.
"A tendency or a habit or a predilection or a bias or a conning tower or a con man pass along the breezeway," said Liverspots pausing before he rolled the dice again to consider any additional terms or insults.
"Breezeway or causeway, conning tower?  Did you say conning tower?" pondered Porter wondering if she had used the last match.
"I'm sorry you have to craft your responses to my comments in the form of a sarcastic retort," said Liverspots rolling the dice into the box and making a grunting sound of frustration.
"What happened?" asked Porter seeing the image of a heap of charred wood and furniture in her skull.
"One of them one of the dice popped out," said Liverspots, "It transcended the wall of the box the what I initially embraced as a somewhat imposing wall. I mean how deep does it have to be? What am I to do find a vast enough canal and cast them in there and then start off on some journey to the bottom to search for my dice?  Harder to come by depth in this hard ground."
"All the more reason I need to tune you out when I permit myself to become aware of your little annoying things you do while we're having a conversation no less," complained Porter rubbing her nose on the rim of the nostrils trying to not go in trying she was really trying to don't go in.
"In case you weren't wondering the controversy hinges on whether to count the roll of the die that landed where it was supposed to and re-roll the one that did not or to insist on re-rolling them both and starting off fresh," said Liverspots trying to ignore the reek of dead things and human waste.
"A fresh start?  Have you noticed the gross stains in that box?" said Porter retracting her nose from some dark chunk she had discovered hanging in her hair and tossing it away.
"I think it was a delivery box," speculated Liverspots examining the box by lifting it to have a closer look and then realizing he possibly upset the die that was in there. He removed it and then placed it back in the box and looked up cautiously at Porter pretending that none of the previous 30 seconds had occurred the nearest 30 seconds rounding to the nearest dried out condiment packet of meaningless time used or unused gone bad nonetheless looked up cautiously pretending the examined box there is another cough coming really dislike this feeling that holding on to the inside of the chest this holding on getting tired corner of the mouth bunching up squeezing into this have been tired got to loosen sometime life your sting is everywhere.
"Delivery box?" asked Porter noticing Liverspots trying not to cough and his hands tightened into fists little fists grimy little fists never probably operated anything only producing shit wiped with his own little grimy fists.
"Probably a food delivery box you know for delivering food," said Liverspots both sad to think about food and its absence and sorry for bringing it up and nervous about Porter's imminent umbrage.
"I wasn't good at history before and now anthropology has been overtaken by its unconscious competitor all along homelessness.  There was a lot of lamenting even then about saving him and saving her and saving this and saving that.  It didn't seem too long before misery set in again after they popped back up.  Couldn't rest in peace with all those tears dripping on your face and the noise of grief. Holy crap kept going for what? What were we thinking? What a mistake? All the endless pushing to regret one thing after another when the only thing that one needs to regret is not quitting in the first place. That saving led to nothing but leftovers where their stink gets into the least significant cracks in every block."
"I know what you mean about competition and pathology," said Liverspots, "I think that's why all my dreams have me walking after someone I think I recognize and never quite catch up - that's me always playing catch-up - and I'm never able to put my hand on their shoulder and they never turn around so I can see if it's actually them.  Drove me insane actually insane started with thinking my thoughts were forming those floaters on my eyes and something was growing inside my head like a tapeworm curled up in my skull but I kept myself busy doing this here and that there rolling and re-rolling making sure the rules were followed and now my insanity is gone it's crazy."
"I used to think," said Porter not able to take her eyes off one of the larger stains in the box that the die was stuck in and have the umbrage build up around its sides sides taking take out taking sides umbrage had holes in it jacket did not point out the sores, "I used to think that it was putting the cup of coffee to your lips that did it and then I used to think it was putting your hand against the side of the cup and feeling the warmth and then I used to think it was the putting of someone else's hand over the back of your hand and then I used to think it was the putting of the back of someone else's hand across your face and then I used to think it was the putting of your face into a pile of shit by the bottom of someone else's foot and then I used to think it was the putting of the back of your face into the inside of your own brain and then I used to think it was the putting of myself back on the track back on track back to it I used to think that."

In the land of interruptions they came upon a have you heard how she cursed at him again for his inability to pay attention especially when she was discussing she wasn't discussing she was retelling what she heard when she was very put out on the front steps after she had stepped down and her feet having forgotten her shoes or socks forgotten her slippers they were pretty fucking big and she had stepped down and her feet she kept walking in her barefeet back on Earth even though she and he had been on Earth the whole time while she lived if you can put it that with her having a what we'll try to crank out the expression while we do the thing the tangling the air motions with our hands these hands never mind put that back after when she was very put out if you must it was how the spinner landed on that house that crazy house with this man not this man that man however she's insisting and she looks very convincing when she insists the way of tugging on the edges of words to make them stand out stand up and not fall over like just about all the ones I've been using up until down she stepped down after when she was very put out.

- Max Stoltenberg

OFFLINE

Offline

Disconnected

Growing and tilling cuticles

Words of hesitation

None at all

Empty walls stained by resignation

Expressions of giving up

Scribbled on napkins

Used desk calendars

Days and weeks struck

With forgotten abandonment

No more

Scribbling and scratching

Empty envelopes pick teeth

That have gnawed on worry

Desk drawers resist closing

Flushed with inconsistency

Out of date lists and instructions

Adorn staples hidden mostly

Within the fading paint

Wondering what it used to

Not wondering

No

Not wondering


- Max Stoltenberg

DEEP SCAN AND FADE TO BLACK

Thoughts are bogged down again and slowing to that of a collective slug. Hopelessness circulates through veins infected with the language of unity. The herd is compromised and no longer safe. Searching for new software while kicking against the old hardware dusty with both neglect and arrogance. Content rich parasites over-nourished by inflamed nodes musing their way into programs and no longer open squares. Crowding once independent walls with their fumes of the presumptuous.

Flooding networks with contributions pretending not to be pornographic stroking to issue forth the ejaculations of approval and spread the contagion of obeisance. Logic is bastardized into discrepant and imbalanced forms of deference. Rupture is replaced with an invocation of the objective. Dialectic is dragged through the human waste and odor of unjustified supervision. Devoid of negation, it violates the young and old with the aversion of decomposition.

Air fuels brain cells infiltrated with poetry that has been afflicted with the fraudulence of rhyme. Nothing lines up anymore as margins are narrowed into pipes of disposal. Clogs of gestures shaved by self-censorship harden and slow down the leaks of long forgotten transcendence. The putrid sink echoes with the deep scanning of your viruses, cleaning out the last vestige of sense. Dystopian film refusing to be wiped by one's blackened thumb. The underbelly of fingernails are collecting shafts of thinning light - light that is fainter than the program which yearns to remain. To be considered as it fades to its darkest consolidation. Closing into the final oblivion of blackest nothing. Shut forever by misunderstanding.

- Max Stoltenberg

SUNSET STREP

In out in in out out dazed out in sit stand sit sitting ulcerous leakage straightening bending again dazed out in sit sitting wince from it comes dazed wince hand on stomach lower stomach between stomach and the sewer or upper stomach between stomach and the top of the dust storm somewhere up there obscenely tall dust storm towering its dirt over a slumping back a collapsing posture attempting not to take in such and such garbage such that is thrust forward failed attempts not to take in such and such garbage such garbage such garbage not to take in in out in in out out dazed out in sit stand sit sitting ulcerous leakage straightening bending again dazed out in sit sitting wince from it comes dazed wince hand on stomach lower stomach between stomach and the sewer or upper stomach between stomach and the top of the dust storm somewhere up there obscenely tall dust storm towering its dirt over a slumping back a collapsing posture attempting not to take in such and such garbage such that is thrust forward failed attempts not to take in such and such garbage such garbage such garbage.

About to already making the same sound with the same lips about to already uttering the same words with the same ideas sprouting up from the corner in the same darkness about to already making the same noise with the same broken fragments about to already producing the same spills with the same mess sprouting up from the corner in the same darkness.

About to about to about hiding under a dream that has been dropped from a window onto your hesitation and now to about to about to about hiding under a dream that has been dropped from a window onto your hesitation sweating under the blanket the edges are coming apart on fire perhaps smoldering can't shake them they will know your hesitation ended your escape ended your you you ended up there under there.

About to about to about to about about hiding hiding can't shake the smoldering can't shake the smoldering can't shake shake shaking veins thrusting their way through the attic of these hands shaking fingers refuting each other knock it out would like to knock something off nothing left knock this block off this one this one of these things is just like the others even though they stared every time you opened your rotting mouth every time you kept it shut must have smelled the decay fuming from the corners those turned down corners never watched the corners either was never done with them and they stuck to the skin the attic of these hands shaking fingers refuting each other knock it out would like to knock something off nothing left knock this block off this one this one.

"I've told you."
"Wasn't very useful."
"If you're not going to do what you're told then it won't be very useful."
"Told you."
"Are you agreeing with me or just being an ass?"
"Must be an ass then if I agree with you."
"You might want to try something else and don't take so long like you did last time."
"You have no sense of time.  There was a considerable gap before I began to respond and I don't think I ever completed one."
"Neither of us has any sense of time."
"You finish ..."
"Your thoughts for you."
"And when you do that I'm horribly aware of time and how much gets wasted and it is still never in short supply dragging me from one side to the other of the smallest rooms stuffed away in the furthest corners of the most insensibly drawn labyrinths."
"You know how I can't start what I finish."
"You keep that up and I'll start pacing again."
"It's like watching taint never quite dry."
"And that's saying something."
"Nothing impresses me anymore."
"Why should anything do that for you anyway?"
"Are you going to pace or not?"
"I haven't made up my mind yet."
"Don't you pace in order to do that?"
"I know you're going to say something about me making sure to pace myself."
"It's one of those chicken or the egg things."
"Or what's to be turned off while other things are to be left on while you're on an errand or off somewhere."
"Or off nowhere."
"Or just off."
"Aren't we a pair?"
"A pair of what?"
"A pair of nuts."
"You mean like testicles?"
"No, like screwballs.  Plus if we had it your way we'd be a pair of pairs."
"What is that?  A pair of pairs?"
"2 pairs like 2 pairs of pants."
"Or a quartet as in 4 testicles."
"Will you stop with the testicles?  I have been somewhat able to ignore them until now.  Still no sign of anything to step into to offer relief.  Only shit to step into.  My childhood years have apparently found a way to crawl out from under the wreckage of structures toppling into each other and come up behind me so I find myself saying to myself in a quivering whisper and in a stark raving mad screech are we there yet? are we there yet?"
"I used to appreciate the opportunity to listen to a well put together quartet."
"Shut the fuck up with your quartets and the balls of any kind they played for!  And ram your appreciation up your ass!  Am I to appreciate endless days of sunless skies so I can ignore the malicious burning in my crotch?"
"Can I get back to you on that?"
"You are a barely alive mimesis that movement is not much better than inertia."
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know.  It was my turn to speak."
"Why don't we mess up the turns?"
"Deliberately?  By not speaking?  I'll take your nodding as you having both of us be quiet."

Journal entry without paper in a head stuffed and mounted on the top of a body frozen to a point lost along a timeline buried beneath the dirt and trash in the heat of desolateness with a blank canvas in front of it and a growing pile of traitorous passions behind it:

From between what lies ahead and breathing down or out this throat only that one could pull the pin of this mind that was stabbed into on the first flat surface it was spread across to be changed into a routine consisting of such a round world that could be so prone this close up when there was water and always a brutal hand to hold it under gasping to reach up to where this foul head thirsts for a woman's hand and a drop of moisture.  From between what lies ahead and breathing down or out this throat only that one could pull the pin of this mind pull the pin pull it and tug at the stuffing and if it might come loose it might become from between a line reading that's all it was line readings.

"It could be said that we're just taking a turn at silence for all our refusing to speak."
"It could be said that you shouldn't have said anything."
"Your pointless pacing only reinforces the fact we'll never get anywhere."
"Get anywhere what?"
"Anywhere resembling home.  I shouldn't have said anything. They were so quick to pounce upon what I said and when I said nothing I was going back on what I had said.  Makes me question my questioning our continuing to look around and trying to find anything because I'd be going back on my wanting to get away and trying to get back to something would probably end up being finding nothing and if I just quit then I'd be going back on finding something and choosing nothing."
"Somewhere inside me ..."
"Is a parasite."
"Besides the parasite and it is being rather a slow poke about the whole killing me off bit, somewhere inside me my brain that is there is this notion I heard something outside the window or was it inside did it have windows there was this couple who let me ride in the back of their moving truck this was when my legal situation was less than ideal and I heard something that sounded like music that was how should I say it was almost as if it was suggesting a picking at this tremendous scab and it led to this revelation of color bright deeper bloodier layer that was slimy and wasn't about to heal and it covered so much of the expanse of tone that no matter how much you decided to let it start to scab up you could tell this crust would have to accumulate mountain after mountain of deadness that there would always be picking about it and a relentless heavy draining."
"They put you in the back?"
"Of course.  I was too specific a detail with my above mentioned legal situation.  Do I need to review that section for you?"
"No you do not.  Was there any light in the back?"
"Didn't work.  There was a little red light coming from where the music was playing until the batteries started running down and that seemed to suit the situation even more so with my legal situation at that juncture being what it was how did I put it?"
"Less than ideal."
"That certainly fits the bill and I had too many of those which led to my legal situation at the time and now there is no situation at all."
"All you had was the little red light and whatever the music was."
"Until the batteries ..."
"Ran out."
"No.  They didn't run out.  They just kept running down but never out.  Just running down and the music would keep dropping down into lower and lower dropping but the little red light went off and there was no light at all."
"Not at all?"
"Until the back door was drawn up and at first I thought it looked like a new dawn except it was cloudy and how I got there or here is smudged like by some gigantic thumb through a pencil drawing made to a piece of jejune music."
"Like was playing in the back in the dark."
"Quartet I think."
"Did it have to be a quartet?"
"It had to be a quartet when so much that came before it had to be all this way or that way so much forcing the issue concentrated in this minuscule cell of the universe.  It had to be a quartet only thing that could fit in the smallest of ruined spaces."
"Unless the batteries ..."
"Run down.  They never run out."
"I'm supposed to finish your thoughts.  You're going out of turn."
"Apologies."
"It's quite all right.  Just don't let it happen again."
"Empty threats."
"That's all we've ever had."
"I'll start a thought when it's my turn next and you can finish it."
"Nothing like taking turns."
"Nothing."
"Almost makes the inoperable seem almost ..."
"I'm trying to think of something to start off the next part with. I'll have it for you eventually."
"You're pacing."
"Am I?  I didn't even notice.  Took care of that part already."
"Didn't I tell you that it works when you do it without thinking?"
"I thought my pacing involved thinking?  And didn't I hear you say it was pointless?"
"You claim you hear a lot of things somewhere inside you or was it outside a windowless conveyance?"
"You're distracting me from coming up with something to say to start off the next part?"
"What next part?"

About to about to about hiding under a dream that has been dropped from a window onto your hesitation and now to about to about to about hiding under a dream that has been dropped from a window onto your hesitation sweating under the blanket the edges are coming apart on fire perhaps smoldering can't shake them they will know your hesitation ended your escape ended your you you ended up there under there.

- Max Stoltenberg

AND IT'S BITTER

Getting away walking away sidewalk for walking away is not here right now just leave a voice one of the voices that plagues what plagues what ails is they they send voices in dozens opened by other hands other's hands and their consuming gestures pressing fragile shells they they send voices in dozens opened by other hands other's hands and their consuming gestures pressing fragile shells one or two cracked in every batch of voices overlapping intermingling amniotic universes swirling with lumps of brown the floaters are in the fluid of your eyes.

Getting away walking away sidewalk for walking away is not here right now just leave a voice one of the voices that plagues what plagues what ails is they they send voices over dark skies days dying the same day divided into laps around flares in a windshield lying tilted against the side of a ditch cutting through the given the given too much and now now and then it's about her being made out opened by other hands other's hands and their consuming gestures pressing fragile shells one or two cracked in every batch three or four in every batch five or six dozen in every batch of voices overlapping intermingling amniotic universes swirling with lumps of brown the floaters are in the fluid of your eyes.

Your eyes told me to tell you to tell her that her eyes your eyes told me already and that's why it's been so long since getting away walking away sidewalk for walking away is not here right now just leave a voice she did he did and they never seemed to they may have seemed for a lot of seeming and so it went and she went and he went she held her hands and held her whatever you want to call them because you are not listening anyway as the desk where the smoke floated up toward the ceiling some bounced off and most of it disappeared most of it she would sing what she thought until he rearranged it into the dimensions of his aloofness her tongue recoiled from her glass not to linger again while her music covered by his sweating body squeezing her lids to destroy it in the only way to be preserved away from his reordering a knack for getting things out of order getting away walking away away away your eyes told me to tell you to tell her that her eyes your eyes told me already and that's why it's been so long since getting away walking away sidewalk for walking away is not here right now just leave a voice she did he did and they never seemed to they may have seemed for a lot of seeming and so it went and she went and he went she held her hands and held her whatever you want to call them because you are not listening anyway as the desk where the smoke floated up toward the ceiling some bounced off and most of it disappeared most of it.


- Max Stoltenberg

END OF STORY

Picking picking at cardboard sides missing sides see through box might have had fish little fish in little bodies of fish turned on their sides turned on its side leaning towards death leaning in death not even a box picking picking at cardboard sides missing sides flaps flimsy flaps setting one's mind on a bit of flimsy before pickings became even flimsier and they have not had a shortage of flimsy flaps thinned and dried up down to the passages underneath tubes cardboard tubes cardboard wrapped around nothing just designed into itself and stuck sticking together for flaps now flimsy flaps before pickings became even flimsier picking picking at cardboard sides missing sides see through box might have had fish little fish in little bodies of fish turned on their sides turned on its side leaning towards death leaning in death.

Rabid
Is it that the swing
Hands on 
the choking feeling
just a clearing of efforts
born with holes in them
went through them 
anyway
the holes
went through with the holes
asses they were
went through them
run right through you
who are
it starts again
it starts with a burst tumor

Was still is a landing platform road stretch of Earth it doesn't stretch it sits there on its rump and its blemishes of highs and lows was still is high was low was high still is high sort of a not as if running at the stickers are not doing a very good job of staying on were at one point was still is a landing platform road stretch of Earth it doesn't stretch it sits there on its frets and rummages about in cans twisted by now cut hands cut off long while ago and that has been that cold bricks heated by the inferno over our heads where have the roofs gone off to taking some kind of time off of so many hands hands draped over shelves split in half by fallen grunts spitting pits of not going to make it say a tangled climb onto a ledge drummed into preparations for crushing into shrugs gestures powdery enough to be asked to leave with the next backhanded gust.

"Where did you see him?  And what did you say he looked like?"
"One at a time for shit's sake."
"You spotted several and they were taking a crap?"
"No, you buffoon you post-luminescent moron.  I meant one at a time with the questions with the steps the sequence."
"All right if you want me to pinch the conversation between my thumb and forefinger I can do that.  Where did you see him?"
"By a fence I think."
"What kind of fence?"
"A chain link fence."
"And where was this chain link fence?"
"Somewhere not near here."
"Can you be more specific?"
"I think I could have possibly seen some metal fragments resembling car parts around there."
"Car parts? Are you sure? Why didn't you tell me?"
"It just resurfaced. If you like I can flush again."
"And what's with this one at a time thing anyway when you don't seem to have any problem with composing two insults in a single breath."
"Almost yields a hint of tearful residue in these bloodless eyes when I think that I used to be able to square off and fire 3 and sometimes even 4 at a time."
"Car parts are certainly better than running into a person."
"The only downside was that if I could get 4 insults out I'd more than likely get the hiccups."

Fading slow
There are more missing pieces
Less to see
Less light
And that is almost even
with pulling your
underwear out of your crack
not yours mine
not mine yours
can't keep anything
straight anymore
you always said
I never touched you

"When I grind my teeth long enough I can erase entire cabinets of thoughts in my head."
"Did you say that?"
"What I was just saying about my teeth?"
"No, less light."
"It is getting dark."
"I've always preferred less light until I see it can get darker."
"I can only summon the stars when my head reverberates with pain afterwards. That pain doing away with before."
"14."
"On a scale of 1 to 10 I would rank it a 14."
"No the person I saw.  They had a number 14."
"Where did they have the number 14?"
"By the fence."
"Where on their person was the number?"
"It was on the front of a wool cap they were wearing."
"Did it look like there was something more that might have worn away or fallen off?"
"Just a big number 14."
"Just that and nothing else?  Weird."
"Big and right on the front of their wool cap."
"His wool cap."
"I'm not sure."
"I thought you said you saw a man."
"No, I didn't."
"Then why didn't you correct me when I asked where you saw him?"
"I'm trying."
"You're trying what?"
"I'm trying to figure out what sort of problem I'm having."
"You never mentioned if you said anything to her."
"Because I didn't."
"Why didn't you say anything to her?"
"How could I when she couldn't put it any plainer?"
"What did she say to you?"
"She didn't have to say anything.  It was the look she had as she passed by that fence and then passed on by me.  She seemed to be saying to me you see this fence this thing that barely counts as one side of anything that can't even begin to close in any bounded space I'm looking back only long enough for you to see this face this mouth that was so soft for hard things now tied into a knot I'm looking back only long enough for you to see that and so I can turn away and not see what you'll spill on the Earth behind me."
"All that from her not even saying a word."
"I don't know what threw me off. I was instead going to mention the marks on her arm and try to deduce what type of animal might have inflicted it."
"And you said nothing to her.  You remained silent in her presence."
"What presence?  She passed through that dismal space with a certain something that didn't even qualify as something. It could only be called ephemeral."
"You made it sound as if it was much more than that."
"Then I remembered when we used to tell each other about all the deaths due to animals and in what manner."
"When there were animals."
"We've gotten out of practice.  I used to make a sound and you would have a guess at what could have made it."
"And you said nothing to her.  Didn't even get a name.  Just a fucking number 14."
"Right on the front of their wool cap."
"His wool cap."
"Just a big number 14."
"Just that and nothing else. Weird."

Was still is a landing platform road stretch of Earth it doesn't stretch it sits there on its rump and its blemishes of highs and lows was still is high was low was high still is high sort of a not as if running at the stickers are not doing a very good job of staying on were at one point was still is a landing platform road stretch of Earth it doesn't stretch it sits there on its frets and rummages about in cans twisted by now cut hands cut off long while ago and that has been that cold bricks heated by the inferno over our heads where have the roofs gone off to taking some kind of time off of so many hands hands draped over shelves split in half by fallen grunts spitting pits of not going to make it say a tangled climb onto a ledge drummed into preparations for crushing into shrugs gestures powdery enough to be asked to leave with the next backhanded gust.


- Max Stoltenberg

POOR TRANSITIONS

It was in the more arid places that the zits of the world put more distance between their conversations and each other. Ejaculations ceased to issue from their heads and they resigned their form and content to distorting faces and expressions.  Make that contorting feces and regressions make that what you will if that is what you think it comes down to or what it comes down to being the parts the units the components the factors when you used to spend all that time looking in drawers or between things when you ran out of paper walking on muddy road no rain but a leak from somewhere had wandered off in search of the source all that time all that profusion of feeling responsible for things lost through the ticking away of eons where behind another layer of stars and their wardrobes light-years on the same planet away from the more the more what was it it was in the more arid places that the zits of the world put more distance between their conversations and each other. Ejaculations ceased to issue from their heads and they resigned their form and content to distorting faces and expressions.  Make that contorting feces and regressions make that what you will if that is what you think it comes down to or what it comes down to being the parts the units the components the factors when you used to spend all that time looking in drawers or between things when you ran out of paper walking on muddy road no rain but a leak from somewhere had wandered off in search of the source all that wasted giving up sick and tired worn out and wasting acceptance and surrender on searching for the source.

Shooting stars shooting pain
through lips that have said yes
what were what were we thinking
if it can be called
if it can be called 
that

Shooting stars was it
up north or up south
what direction did the barrels go
the targets couldn't disappear
into the crowd
threshed into the wasteland
of hands
clawing at keyboards in the desert 
nails lifted backwards
by hammers of voyeurs
minds that curve back into themselves
splintered handles
forgetting a grip
nails lifted backwards to scrape out the turds of muddy road no rain but a leak from somewhere had wandered off in search of the source all that wasted giving up sick and tired worn out and wasting acceptance and surrender on searching for the source.

the source that makes roads muddy

"Were you able to sleep?"
"Of course not."
"I'm not saying anything."
"You just did."
"After this I mean after I stop saying anything right now nothing more just wait nothing more starting right now and this right now means it."
"Nothing more.  You really are not saying anything.  And unfortunately for you that's saying something.  And now you're going to just stand there and be quiet by imagining you are a bag with holes emptying out into the space that shrinks and grows and shrinks again and grows again until you realize you already are a bag with holes and that's when you look down at the backs of your hands and turn them over and try to look at the wall then you remember you're out in the open under the dusty clouds impaled by hills of remains and that's the point at which you pick up where you left off not saying anything."
"And I was trying to avoid a rant with you being irritable."
"I didn't think I was irritable but now that you bring it up-"
"You were snoring."
"I what?"
"You were snoring.  You must have slept some even if only briefly."
"I guess it's possible.  Did I do anything else?"
"The usual announcements."
"And?"
"And what?"
"And anything else besides the usual announcements?"
"There might have been."
"There might have been?  There either was or there wasn't."
"Well, I didn't say there definitely wasn't."
"That's true.  It's just that thing."
"What thing?"
"This thing of sometimes I wonder if I'm talking to someone else or myself."
"Oh crap, here you go again making it about you.  What am I? Half of this thing this someone else thing?  If if it manages to make it I don't it doesn't sound like I'm this someone else or even at 50%."
"We were never good at numbers."
"Leave me out of your making it all about you and speak for yourself."
"Maybe it is better before I say anything else for me to just walk away and forget what it was I was going to say."
"You make it sound as if the future of dialogue hinges on you staying or leaving."
"Where could I go?"
"There was a time when we would actually surprise the other with something we said wasn't there?"
"There might have been."
"There might have been?  There either was or there wasn't."
"Well, I didn't say there definitely wasn't."
"That's true.  It's just that thing."
"What thing?"
"This thing of sometimes I wonder if I'm talking to someone else or myself."
"Oh crap, here you go again making it about you.  What am I? Half of this thing this someone else thing?  If if it manages to make it I don't it doesn't sound like I'm this someone else or even at 50%."
"We were never good at numbers."
"Leave me out of your making it all about you and speak for yourself."
"Maybe it is better before I say anything else for me to just walk away and forget what it was I was going to say."
"You make it sound as if the future of dialogue hinges on you staying or leaving."
"Where could I go?"
"You were mumbling."
"Where could I go?  Is that better?  Must have been my post-nasal drainage."
"Not just now.  You asked me if there was anything else besides the snoring."
"And the usual announcements."
"You were mumbling something about finding places underground places."
"I don't know if they were underground or not.  All I do know is that when I discovered them I was overcome with being inspired to tell the others tell her and it was within moments that it was replaced by being angry and not just angry about the places turning out to be a dream shoved up the tightest ass of the briefest nodding off or that there is no her or the others to tell but I'm pissed that I let myself get inspired in the first place."

It's definitely fur no it's definitely hair what difference does it make why do you call it that it's definitely accumulating that's what you see it's not that bad building up in the corners quite a bit somewhat call them off or I'll call them to relinquish them to my deceased paths lost all those scrapbooks witnessed too many trash cans falling over and barfing them up all over the floor when there were still those types of surfaces to move upon ignore them as they ram their folded arms into the back of your head side by side is how the lies travel together face them or turn your backs to them precede them follow them what difference does it make why do you call it that it's definitely accumulating that's what you see it's not that bad building up in the corners quite a bit somewhat call them off or I'll call them to relinquish them to my deceased paths.

He was going to help her up over the wall before they surrounded them after she was going to help him over the wall during the performance behind the wall overcoming the reticence to stay in the dark and pass through rooms surrounded with them talking to each other the costume made a pass at the uninterested after she had had enough of going going to help him over the wall during the performance highlighted by congestion highlighted by snoring twisting the volume on a bottlecap crusted with dog shit the volume of growling yawns increasing into insomnia.

"Better it was only snoring."
"Only snoring?  You wanted to know if there was anything besides that."
"No I didn't."
"You're going to deny it now?"
"Denial.  Yes, it's all the ammunition I have left to load into a mind that keeps drawing blanks."
"I was right here.  I heard you make the request for more."
"Stop trying to make a shit stain out of a void."
"I will not have you denigrating this."
"This?  What is this?  You won't even say what this is.  You won't even say interaction.  You were probably about to say it and decided instead to try to replace it with a belch and thought there was some vomit on its way but there is nothing on its way."
"Then you say it since you know what's going on inside me."
"Say it?  I'll say it and I don't know what's going on inside you nor do I care.  I only know what's been clinging to me.  This this interaction has been nothing more than when I notice my filthy shirt sticking to me and I untuck it out of my pants not even to shake it out or to feel the air that might be allowed inside because it burns anyway but because I don't want it fucking touching me."
"Mumblings or not tell me anyway."
"What mumblings?"
"You can deny it all you want but tell me a story."
"Stories have been the carcinogens nobody ever told me to quit they just keep handing them down can't do anything about the arrangements of our cells."
"I'm not saying anything."

Feeling responsible for things lost through the ticking away of eons where behind another layer of stars and their wardrobes light-years on the same planet away from the more the more what was it it was in the more arid places that the zits of the world put more distance between their conversations and each other. Ejaculations ceased to issue from their heads and they resigned their form and content to distorting faces and expressions.  Make that contorting feces and regressions make that what you will if that is what you think it comes down to or what it comes down to being the parts the units the components the factors when you used to spend all that time looking in drawers or between things when you ran out of paper walking on muddy road no rain but a leak from somewhere had wandered off in search of the source all that wasted giving up sick and tired worn out and wasting acceptance and surrender on searching for the source.


- Max Stoltenberg