WAS THAT

Was that in step or was that out of step?  Was that from next door down the hall or outside?  Was that can that do that was that put off for a little while a long while too long was that?  Was that can that do that was that in line on line off line crossing the line was that drawn in blood what blood from where was that?  Was that the nerve close to it the last next to last was that?  That this pissed was that pissed when was that?  Was that directed at that directed at this was that?  Was that a question on the table or under it was that?  Can that be now can that be then this then can be then now for stuff like that there?  Was that the room where was that it that was room for some space to room with this no longer this but that was that?  None of that now some of that then was that the case all that is the case was the case was that?  Was that it was it that it was some of this some of that was the sum total of all this none of this nonetheless was this then that what was what was it what was nothing more than this somewhat more than expected or less than what has come to become much less of what was then and there not here not what it was?  Could that was that that was could have been in the head on a page was that written or spoken or taken out left in watered down was that watered down with nothing left to add?  Was that equated with when things some things added up before this subtracted that added then watered down a wash all a wash washed away with what was the tide of the times no time for tides just was that acceptance that was this smoothing out of the waters the wash the watered down for no tides to give was that a given was that taken for granted nothing granted was that it was that the next thing next to last the last step taken cues confusing cues given was that a message no messages was that was that it not even somewhat what was that was somewhat coherent the next step was that determined was that decided when was that decided what was that that was what was decided or left undecided was that a left was that a right was that straight was that a little just a little scenic no time for that was that a scene that was written or spoken or without words that was was that was that look a look of possibility or a look of despair that was put down on this or put down on that what was put down or forced down by force was that force was it agreed to somewhat that was somewhat disagreeable was that that was put forth to put forth more force down more effort until what was that that it was was equal to zero was one was more than that once one was that what was and now is a multiplicity of what has been taken taken for granted granting nothing circling this pencil into a round number round symbol for no amount of something not even somewhat what was that was was that positive was that negative was that only nothing to be concerned about was that nothing to be concerned was that ushering in unconcern for nothing more than what was was that crossing the line underlining underscoring no score settling for more or less traces of what was that line that circles no amount of endless grief that was that that is was that grief lined with the flat line extending on was that a blip every so often was that as often not as often as what was along the flat line extending on.

- Max Stoltenberg

DUST ARE THE EMBERS

Notorious 
Is the flammability
Measuring the shadows in the distance
Far away and over the shoulder
Etched in the skulls
Humiliated in silence as well as movement
Backwards against the sunlight
Twisted torso
Wringing out remembrance
Places visited grinding in the
Garbage disposal
Disposed of and soiled
with greased response

Wanted are the places
Captured in pictures
Rimpled by wind
Focus disappearing to the
backs of heads
leaning against others
who rifle
through it

Dust are the embers
Disease and the aging arms
wave stringed instruments into
a navigation across subtle melancholy
groaning and clearing this throat
clearing this window sill
stuffed with uneven sheets of glass
uneven composure
disequilibrium
insufficient and prolonged
across the sill
impaled and treated
for another term

Legs and teeth
Dogs swirling barking
In the corners of fences
Dark wooden fences
Arid fences throb
With dust slurping
Faces hurrying by

Dust are the embers
Where are the places?
the lonely spots
haunts

Dust are the embers
setting it all
as a deep torch to welcome
the next rows and rows
into the ovens
scraping off ashes
with blades of sighing
devised coughs the only continuing
punctuation


- Max Stoltenberg

RUNNY NOSE

As serious as comedy is knotted together with hands of different sizes and mostly small the very small not too small primally gripping kind that’s funny as well make it last until another thrown from a height is splashing and leaving legs and arms that seem to still move but only on the waves until the wind dies until this story dies until this idea dies do it unto others they say and they say it too much until it gives all food and air a perpetually bad taste smell in the front seat and prospective denial it is run over by another set of procedures processes and regresses and sends the station wagon fishtailing and dovetailing off of short hairs springing back up from a shaving with the blade of renunciation what a bloody blade sprinkled with hydrogen peroxide and an ambiguity medicated for a couple of weeks until more will become used to it used to.

Can’t keep them open as the above and below fight for the middle and shut it all down into a worthless horizon worthless horizon of the same old expressions jolting into the next day of delayed death a whipped up beverage of superficial and feigned enthusiasm. Noxious are the justifications sending them down the steep hill into the rocks and waste on the shore. On the shore on the shortcomings of the shoved and herded to yet another trend of extinctions what rapture what lift what wind shear of raped sadness down down into the dust under the classroom calendars marking off weeks and weeks of the weak.

The dialogue has been choked and swings from an unused extension cord swinging in time to the rhythm of an unheard child.

Nipped in the bud.
 
Don't pull that attitude.  No more hypnotists!  Crank crank crank cranky bitch fuck chewing on knuckles knuckling down knuckle down hunker into it if that makes sense to you slap him in the face that smells of arrogance dangling the hair off the cliff the long shimmering hair like a been there before drowsy with repetition and poetry in the cracks and crannies and nooks are they nooks believe so so believing no more hypnotists damn the whole lot of them of every variety every shiny flavor and color tasting and sticking the tongue to the flypaper of decaying parchment recycled reboxed and repeating the stomach emptying and refilling emptying the head out the back and quite a bit out the front.
 
A front he was a front for generation the next generation the last generation the previous generation regenerating tired out ideas and dangling long hair shimmering out over the ocean so ready to swallow the head attached to the long hair letting go the surrender routine routine surrender.  A front he was a front for generation the next generation the last generation regenerating tired out old ideas of violence stapled to decaying parchment recycled and expired medicine and the matter floating in it the matter the damaged and experimented pieces of questions little questions floating in the syrup stuck in the syrupy answers.
 
Girl: I see the ocean.
Man: Not much longer for for looking for for looking.
Girl: Can't see the end.
Man: Smash my lids together to bring the end into focus.
Girl: That must hurt.
Man: Don't know the meaning of the word.
Girl: I can put it in a sentence for you.
Man: Growing old with sentence after sentence.
Girl: You have grey hairs on both sides now I can see the stuff on the left side more now.
Man: Stop seeing and look at the ocean.
Girl: Stop seeing and look? 
Man: Turn back towards it.
Girl: We're kind of close to the precipice.
Man: Precipice? When did you learn that word?
Girl: You taught me that word.
Man: When was that?
Girl: When you used to use it.
Man: Used to use it used to be used used up up and out.
Girl: Put me down. We're too close.
Man: Haven't put you down lately. You're new smell is too close for me.  You're right too close give me room and take your new smell and new skin out there where your new voice will be drowned in the storm on that side that side far too many on this side with your new voice and its range that wants to newly wed new things to discover then discover them out there.
Girl: You'll put me down again after you dangle me long enough over the abyss that is more open than whatever happened to your eyes those smashed lids that talk themselves into the immanent end that never comes let me go put me down let me go put me down dangle me over the abyss of your gaping all your gaping indecision you call repentance.
Man: Tell me more tell me more want to know what's between your words between your eyes between your steps.
Girl: I've told you every who every what every where every when every why and you've produced more pus than anything else you've tried to muster.
Man: Muster.
Girl: My nose.
Man: What?
Girl: My nose is between my eyes.
Man: It's bleeding.
Girl: It's always running.
Man: Your feet are pretty useless to you now aren't they?  Go ahead I want to see them do their usual dance.
Girl: You're making me look down on you during these near death experiences that don't change anything.
Man: Guess I just don't have your new smell I'll hold you out a little far out than usual so the salt air can upstage your strawberry shampoo. 
Girl: The ocean would be downstage of me.
Man: You're just not letting out the usual reaction anymore. Like you used to.  Shifting from abuse to dependency what a world.
Girl: It was watermelon shampoo I used last night after I did my math.
Man: Your new smell your stamina doesn't come from me it just rings in my ears like tinnitus all the talk all the speaking all of it don't have the strength left.
Girl: Then let me go.
Man: Why? You want to see if there is anything else afterwards?
Girl: Not really.
Man: Then let's extend the seasons back into the rerun formula as the crocodile does its death roll turnover the masses turning over if I can't make your face wet with tears anymore exhaustion will have to do wear you down with the whatever whatever was that saying that escapes me.  As in what I can bring to my mind riddled with swiss cheese holes slice upon slice pound after pound of cheese and meat the meat of the bird caught in the predator's jaws who thinks its so smart before it's digested to say, "So I'm supposed to think I'm special because you chose me?"  That wasn't the story I was thinking of I think it was that other one that had the other funnier bit that escapes me.
Girl: It's another list or line or club like the ones at school I never seem to get my name on or into.  The things that escape you.  When will I escape you?  I'm just waiting for you or anyone else in charge to lose their grip or drive this whole thing off into the sea but the whole thing never crashes it just restarts.
 
He let her go for a brief moment and she had no time to hover or freeze but to be caught in the tangled mess of his program his plan.  He caught her and threw her back onto the dirt further from the precipice her word his word its word its glitch in the procession the parade of mad floats matter further embedded in the recycled and expired medicine syrupy and allergic.
 
The dialogue has been choked and swings from an unused extension cord swinging in time to the rhythm of an unheard child.
 
Nipped in the bud.


 
- Max Stoltenberg

COFFEE AND WATER

Picking at cuticles.  Unwrapping the thumb from right to left.  Time closing into a biscuit heated by a light bulb painted with abilities soon to return soon to reunite soon to slip from yearning eyes and their retinas leaking sand of months wasted in training and practice and temptation's magnetic field repelling the unlucky.  Standing in doorways until half or almost half of the fingers the decimal points keep snapping into another place another place proposing to a desk in front of a window and its tight blinds tight and unmoving until silence swallows the awkward meal of engulfed conversation down the paper funnel to be shit out onto the carpet a hazard marked with the ink of the minimal and sealed in compliance.

Up and at odds with even more odd decisions swarming around with the buzz up from copies fainter paler even at this end evenly ironed over that time or and this time closing into a biscuit heated by a light bulb painted with abilities soon to return soon to reunite soon to slip from yearning eyes and their retinas leaking sand of months wasted in training and practice and temptation's magnetic field repelling the unlucky.  What abilities just little dark grounds roasted and sluggish at the bottom of the coffee pot wash it out dump it out drum up drier grounds drum it up water it pour the water in wetting the floor tops of shoes pants in the crotch showing the age of stains hurry and dry back to maturity that elusive pointing at the yearning eyes into the yearning eyes and their retinas leaking sand of months wasted in training and practice and temptation's magnetic field repelling the unlucky.


- Max Stoltenberg

PENCIL SHAVINGS

Where they stood with each other was where they stood and where they did not go with each other.  Not a chance to chance it or the ground the foundation the ground was too hard to carve any time out of chance's face that face waking up from some face sinking into the bed's darkness under the blankets.  Running sliding along the outer edge of the white picture completely white as cream cheese photograph until riddled with the blemishes of words and different directions stepping down off of the curb and back up again not really going to make it to remain with the remaining.

Courtesy brought to it by courtesy of the exchange that will have no truck with it destined with it destined to have no destiny but the one planting their feet into the tide going out from the top of the curb where they backed up to remain with the remaining.  Left to hang out out of it out of them left hung out to dry already dry for years since the last things they had forgotten things some such stuff forgotten to further dry with the harsh air to rub the bits of looking forward still stuck to their skin their last layers layer or so.

She looked at him on the curb as he looked at the curb at the dead edge where nothing emerged. 

She: Do you want to go out or do you want to go in?
He: Which one did you want to tackle first?
She: I just want to know which you want.
He: So do I.
She: You don't have to make decisions based solely on what I want.
He: It's funny you should say that.
She: Am I speaking in that strange tone with that amusing variety of inflection again?
He: It's like the tide is going out and taking the summer the heat of the summer finally and tomorrow I will be proved wrong one more time as I look up at the sky the brightest blue looking for clouds to bring rain to bring some shade and tell myself "no" because I can't tell others I just say it to myself with not being noticed by anyone else as their eyes never meet mine after looking away myself so many instances of escaping and can no longer come back and maybe have someone ask my opinion or what I believe about the sky and how it looks to me.  When will I tell someone that I can't look the sky in the whatever and declare what I don't believe about it and instead know that it's what the sky doesn't believe about me.
She: A chance to predict to engage in some predicting.
He: It's one of a cluster of theories.  Depending on what you consider to belong in the cluster: 4, 5, 6?  7 even?
She: 7 is not an even number.
He: Oddly enough it's a proposal or was was what I was getting at moving towards.
She: As we stand here.
He: Stopped evolving.  Just sort of levelled off on a plateau or a ledge more like on the other side of the mountain smallish mountain side of some structure or other that other lost the view if the one before could be seen as a view never looked that inviting on the inside poking at it pointing at it made this life this life on the inside in the inside of this tank go into shock and break out in irrationality and then finally become more down to Earth as you turned over we turned over a rotting leaf to have a better look at the gravel at the bottom while all the blood ran to our heads and our feet pretending to walk on the ceiling just cycling in the hollow space.
She: Don't feel like cooking.  I said it.  It's out.  And that's probably all the out we'll get today or any other day.  Maybe if we go back that way just a street just cross one road and not think about where it could take us because we're done with being taken we can pretend that we're going in and then come back to where we were where we are right now and then act as if we've gone out.  It's what everyone else is doing.  At least that's what I tell myself.  I've told myself that for years so that I can feel better about not getting anywhere so I can stop envying all these other people getting places and going back and forth moving forward and backward and out and in being twisted into the hole of routine that twists them and peels another layer off of them to keep making lines lines moving and crossing other lines intersecting at intersections making angles that appear new and are actually old while we try to erase mistakes and tear the sheet crumple it up and start all over trying not to make another anything permanent.
He: Keep having to pile up rocks and move them far enough away from others so they won't throw them.  I didn't think that they could grow or move but they keep showing up more of them and in just about the same places that they were picked up from.  How did they get there?  Didn't know that there was a possibility that rocks could precipitate.  It's ridiculous isn't it?  As things make less sense our explanations get more insane.  I would like to make more sense just once before tomorrow.  In case I die tomorrow.  I probably won't die tomorrow.  And I probably won't make any more sense tomorrow.  Rocks sure do precipitate a great deal.
She: I almost wrote a poem last night.  I got too exhausted.  Trying to recall what it was about.  Had what I thought was a good start or maybe it was the end.  It was something about a father and his son or a mother and her daughter where little arms didn't feel real or was it big hands that could no longer touch or sense.
He: A catalogue to order from fell from a 14th floor balcony and landed on the back of a flatbed.  There was nothing on the platform so the speed it was travelling at just sent the catalogue on its way from wheel to wheel roof to roof to finally rest wet and damaged on the street in front of an office building where someone leaving work discovered it and took it up to their 14th floor balcony.
She: You should contemplate the curb for a change and realize the importance of being at the edge the edge of something new to emerge and see how the edge keeps us back and lets everything else violate it.  In and out in and out trying to elicit something to develop some layer some build up between us and that that nonsense that keeps crossing the edge and taking away where we get taken some more where we become thinner to make thinner lines that get erased anyway leaving nothing permanent nothing emerges on that edge not really.


- Max Stoltenberg

SEE BELOW

And others.  All over the place out of focus feeling coming back into the fingers but not for long as the words retreat all over the place (see below).  Focus according to whom?  Confer with what?  Not in this (see below) a draft is setting to spin some contraption from another place that made its way here somehow. 

And others.  The device sits quietly just to the (for example, the light changes to yellow) slowing the stream taking what drinks under the current preferences (not enough space to elaborate here) when chemical formulas are lathered with the tolling of the hour as close to noon as deemed fit by restrictive excesses (soon or not so soon to follow or be nonchalantly mentioned in a recipe for a hoax).

And others.  Parenthetically speaking from within or kept out of the bracket the next to last bracket next block above or below (see below) the next block in the curved walls closest or approximately in the proximity of the waterline lowering with every inch she cuts from her auburn hair during another day in the heat another day in this dry land. (See below) or really try not to look at what has been stared at for so long with the feeling that leaves returns and leaves hands letting down what has been brought to us just about every time there is a claim to identify with relate to it staking right through it into it outside of it going back over it in it in it for the long haul the overlong haul no overhaul no U-haul to escape this dry land bruised with failure.


And others.  Note failed attempts failed things attempt to fail wrapped in not as rotted a smell as the morning before taped together with something some things alluded to earlier keep going back never to find them never finding them in this dry land bruised with failure.  (See below) or really try not to look at the malfunctioning and diseased parts of these intestines brought to us just about every time there is a claim to identify with relate to it staking right through it into it outside of it going back trying to return to those things taped together with something some things alluded to earlier keep going back never to find them never finding them in this dry land bruised with failure.  (See below) or really try not to look at what is all over the place and has flooded inside the head or out of the head no accomodations made for overflow.  Top heavy bottom heavy it makes no difference talking about listening to nothing new but different faces unknown faces don't recognize rather mess with the focus from a distance distanced from being another (see below due to there not being enough space to elaborate here or elsewhere due to there not being enough space anywhere else to elaborate on anything else nothing else to elaborate on) as the end the climax the end recedes into a recursive desistance as noted previously (as in this context) struck from or flung from or into that which having been flung into from the hands of what has been alluded to earlier or above in the vast silent awning before it darkens and obscures auburn hair cut another inch on another hot day obscured along with darkened eyes that note failed attempts failed things attempt to fail wrapped in not as rotted a smell as the morning before taped together with something some things alluded to earlier keep going back never to find them never finding them in this dry land bruised with failure.

And others.  (See below).


- Max Stoltenberg

STAIRCASE

Narcolepsy kept him on his toes and off his rocker.  Or was it that narcolepsy kept him on his rocker and off his toes?  Or maybe narcolepsy kept him from towing the line and ended up more often than not stuck between a rock and a hard place?  Or perhaps it just so happened that there wasn't the reenactment of the usual parallel experiences of the sudden collapse and smashing into metal picnic benches tucked away amid the fighter jets to conserve aircraft carrier runway space.  If knocking about the unexpected punctuating dimensions of interior design was avoided there was always the colliding along the pinball bumpers of his freely associating and tangential thoughts.  How could anyone possibly arrange a coherent paragraph with the neural tongs his thought salad was being tossed with?  Life as its elements were herded through a topography slapped together with alternating fire escape and bog found itself or lost itself soon thereafter within the awkward prepositional phrase at the end of a run-on incomplete sentence doubled as a result of each subsequent violation into.

That was not it.  That was not it at all.  Not on your life but certainly in the life mentioned above there if the eyes are lifted slightly unless more words are employed and run along doing their thing returning and stepping down to the next level below while the life mentioned above sublimes up into the up and up as the derailing trainwreck of a mind peels off below.  Never mind.  It's down here as well.

It all collects at the bottom the refuse after it collects at the top to be thrown down to the bottom where it collects the refuse the refuse that many times gets stuck on the steps the steps that lead up and lead down the steps that stay where they are they stay right where they are the steps that were built put there to get one places vantage points too high too low and the just right that's so rare and so very brief steps have a habit of coming out from under one when time is taken only a little bit a miniscule digit of time's waning smirk congealing into a weak and fetid belch of misery.  Cannot wipe that expression off of this atmosphere's face. 

Cut fingers now cut brushed stubs of glass from the grandfather clock in order to more easily read the bloodied pages of the aged hardcover book.  The fine strokes of red may have crossed letters and words but one and maybe another or disregard that.  Never mind.  It's down here as well. 

Convinced of taking in passages and possibly a larger sense in the thick of it the red that is the blood that is blood and its pictures hemorrhaged a thousand words.  The unobscured persisted silently in circulating through exposed fistulas approximating the following on the traumatized page:

". . . infantile in fantasies idling infants fantastically senile agile athlete at the least sign of the least he she could do was devote more time be more devoted to others devoting more attention and paying on time more attention to how on purpose if there was one or maybe another disregard that.  Never mind that.  It's down here as well.  Might as well admit it get them to admit it they will never admit how on purpose they did what they did infantile in their ire their fascination with idleness idols standing in front a front for standing for something their on purpose nonsense they committed to on purpose committed on purpose of sound mind and body blown out and reduced minimized minimizing others as they think of others and project their loud voices their pet peeves which have become more important infantile fantastic proportions propositions positions inciting offerings offered on purpose to something more beyond death left behind with rotting bones in holes in the ground a ground for infancy fantasizing immortalizing the senile returning to the scene of the grime and their pet peeves and sparse fur working through light and dark and dark to fill in not fill in bald patches on the dying dog's body that lifted and fell less dramatically due to the diminishing performance of expiring lungs dog lungs on purpose this took place certainly taking the place on purpose of dog lungs with deader cells forming their opinions on purpose opposing each other as bog and fire escape as school pictures and synthesized strings composed by a tired artist nodding off with a lemon meringue pie falling from his sleeping eyes and clogged nostrils kicking the plug out of the wall.  Makes one look for the eventual dropping off with slashed interest in squeezing more life into the on purpose doing that on purpose falling and rising of the dead dog dying dog's body next to last drop of life shoveled with its tongue a rusted paintbrush absorbing stagnant water from the almost empty bowl . . . whole howls offered up to a sky that echoes and darkens a stark proof on purpose and their trajectories of howls offered up out to a sky that echoes and darkens a stark proof thickened with the presence of the thief standing at the bottom of the stairs ready to leave with the little saved in tins and envelopes with nothing written on them a theme anathema to the thief leaving with plenty of time purloined credited to the next flight of stairs flights of fancy instantiating crusts of bread betting on nothing more to come their way except what just came their way . . . a theme growing festering in them a theme an enema to use their internal life against them excavate it out of them into fossilized memories to assume the shadow of hollow and fragile bones."

Flipping pages earlier pages later pages much later pages to a story a so-called upper story higher story looking down on the small and looking through the sphincters of the large.  How did a piece of glass get there?  On this page?  Flicking it off putting off the shattered.

"The old blind man on the motorcycle riding on the back behind his blind wife riding behind her old mother what a woman with what a load no room for plausibility no room to pause only room to keep moving keep from falling to be swallowed up by the ground.  They moved the wind the space they took up the space they moved through."

The grandfather clock the glass the book the blood the staircase tried to re-enter through the corner of his eye the thief long gone such a short time ago.

". . . no room for plausibility . . ."

The broken glass the book the blood the thief long gone such a short time ago.

". . . behind his blind wife riding behind her old mother what a woman with what a load no room for plausibility no room to pause only room to keep moving keep from falling to be swallowed up by the ground. They moved the wind the space they took up the space they moved through."

what a woman

Dark green gown long red hair and those eyes lips of promise of disappointment the blood the book the thief long gone such a short time ago.  The staircase re-entering through the corner of his eye.  Only a matter of time before the book would fall from his hands if that's how it went happened or couldn't with there being so much being and so little room for plausibility what a woman what disappointment only time would tell was what one would hear gnawing at one's leaning to one side and then the next and back again what a woman so little room for what time would tell telling the time between the plugging and  unplugging.


- Max Stoltenberg