FOOT SNOW

Don't want to hear about these flashes not of light but these flashes forward and back through tense palms that flip through cards with pictures on them call them photographs if you will even though that is not what they are cards stiff and bent and fingerprints sure they are sprinkled like crumbs over furniture and counters and car windows but they really set those cards on their way to being worn out for the backyard to form an unwieldy sheet like a chunk of roof slid off the top of the house.  Toppled stacks of paper cut-outs formed a chain of corresponding limbs of vellum sweeping themselves over the edge of the table motioning each other to get lost.  She'd thumb-wrestle his caressing fingers away.  Someday they'll inevitably lose their way attempting their pitiful endeavors towards the outskirts of what they forgot they were talking about thinking of something maybe to do with an unfinished note with the words "nothing except the truth" in the margin somewhere somewhat slanted.

It comes back around to that choking sensation one of the tubes inside that just might burst or it will persist in its hazarding another swallowing its latest guess at legs sliding down his throat ravelry of mock acknowledgement a din frosted with nausea the nausea the it of existence that comes back around the regurgitation of yesterday into tomorrow spilling its pale color of undigested day and night crocheted together with shut the fuck up.  

"Nobody it'll just have to be."
"Swing."
"My arms ache."
"No not that.  What ever happened to the swing seat after it fell from the set?"
"It fell did it?"
"Yes it did.  We talked about it the day after it happened."
"Another forgotten backyard conversation?"
"We had our chat in the sideyard."
"So I suppose you've catalogued which side we were on at the time as we felt our way along the plumber's snake through the shit drain of the world."
"There's nothing to read while I do my business.  That's all I'm going to say for now."
"Give it a few now's and another overflowing paradox of the naive will brim in your mouth."

His mouth remained closed as his cheeks inflated.

Are you going to leave it like that?

Suppose.

Suppose what you want.

That's what's being done.  Supposing.

Suppose what you want and it'll still be.

It'll still be what?

It'll still be.

It'll still be what? is what I'm asking.

It will still be.

Spread apart your contraction with one of your fingers digging around in the seat of your pants.

When you lost it.

Lost it.  That buzzard that uninhabitable idea turned most of the hair grey and left the darker patches to mockingly display wasted youth.

Wasted.

Haven't swallowed for cellars of hiatuses re-emerged from the open metal doors and clanked them shut started hopping up and down on the rusted surface desiring to fall through until the ridiculousness of the whole thing triggered a sick laughter rejected by the latest tomb.  Don't open anything now haven't opened anything sitting here.  It's about time you retracted yourself back underneath.

"You're guessing about the time."
"I count backwards and forwards and backwards through the years and I can say I don't have a favorite age never had a favorite age.  Used to think it might be right now until it became this right now.  Just right is hardly given a chance to start it's suspended suspended with chains and you tighten and loosen your hold on things chains hard to find where to put yourself while motion only turns the stomach into an oven for burning up on the inside everything you thought you could take from the outside where the trees without leaves and the eyes without color dissolve into a cauldron where the pain and the deforming pressure nightmarish conversions of heat and searing memories."

"This is where you kick me in the head."
"You're guessing about the time."
"Am I?  I thought I was dead on.  Not dead yet, but still on and if you could do us a turn and turn off the lights to the old noggin with a hard enough kick we would be much obliged."
"Obliged?  You'd be a corpse."
"Then pin the bill to my chest.  I won't feel a thing."
"Nor pay anything."
"No not a thing."
"I'm in the wrong line of unemployment."
"I'd like to propose a toast."
"What are you doing?"
"I'd like to propose a toast."
"What are you doing by proposing a toast?"
"I thought I'd change the subject."
"Did you prefer multiple choice or fill in the blanks?"
"Multiple choice."
"I used to think that until the more blanks that show up in my head."
"You don't say."
"I do unless I draw a blank."
"Truly inspired."
"Inspiration is looking for genius exhausting almost every pore almost every orifice realizing you started at the wrong end."
"I think you mean perspiration with both lungs burning using up almost every branch for kindling from the bronchial tree."
"That's respiration dumb ass."
"Jack ass if you don't mind."
"You never told me your first name was Jack."
"It's not.  Or maybe it is.  Thought it started with a letter no it's not."
"Either way your last name is ass."
"Where is that blood coming from?"
"It's probably my nose again."
"Been doing that a lot lately haven't you?"
"A lot but certainly not enough.  Run out of ideas run out of wool run out of chains run out of flat on the back run out of flat on the face run out of running out sitting here on the edge of the desert more sand to mingle with old dry skin that brushed up against a picture of her that the wind took away and replaced with the latest trash that fills the living room the room where the wall eventually gave way to the howling of the dunes writing incomplete answers in the blanks of a gradually erased landscape."
"Stop bleeding on me."
"When you withdraw yourself all the way back under the table and leave me alone."
"And then you'll stop talking to me?"
"I don't know about that."
"Drawing another blank?"
"If I had one less blank could I do without the likes of you in my head?"
"I got nothing.  I'm drawing a blank."
"My paralyzed imaginary friend at the end of my days that drip on as the smallest leak of an ulcerous bag of nerves is drawing a blank a sloppy hole that goes right through my head right through my last nightmare and back up through my mouth that hums and whistles all the tunes I hate and can't get rid of."

And having followed the directions the steps leading up to walking down to the bottom for a foot in the door that closed on perseverance slicing it in half half awake to re-position the tongue under the table and catch the crumbs hard to chew working on it what must be said in response to those cold words in this dry hot atmosphere dusty with crumbs hard to chew working on it what must be said in response to those cold words in this dry hot atmosphere dusty having followed the directions the steps leading up to walking down to the bottom the dark bottom for a foot in the door that closed on perseverance slicing it in half half awake to re-position the tongue under the table and catch the crumbs hard to chew working on it that crumb think might be able to see that crumb off in the distance have to follow into the desert after that crumb catch up to it in the desert have to follow after it after having followed the directions the steps leading up to walking down to the dark bottom.


- Max Stoltenberg

BLOCKS AND CHIPS

Ground to the last day of what ground to the what day will won't will last against the will against last ground the latest ground too late for filling a dented fingernail extending an image a reflection and not a finger not a hand not a life not in the least rumpled against the up and down of between sky and ground the air restricting entrance upon a time upon a day what day will won't will last against the will against last ground the latest ground too late for filling a dented fingernail drawn against draw it back drawn out ground to the last day of what ground to the what day will won't will last against the will against last ground the latest ground too late for emptying a dented fingernail shaking away slowly slowly a little less slowly from next to the nail won't will won't will last against the will against last ground lasting letting letting lasting shaking away slowly slowly a little less slowly from next to the nail won't will won't will last against the will.

Within the block
Chipping away
Within the chips
Blocking off
Lifting an ear to the 
tilted silence
a thumping outside
passing by
getting closer
a thumping outside
getting closer

Head a head lowered just a little lower than the bench smelling of sitting there much too long sitting there had to sit there a bit over over head a head lowered just a little lower than the bench smelling of sitting there much too long sitting there had to sit there a bit over a bit turning a bit to the side eyes brown eyes turn to side and bump against the side of eyes brown eyes turned with a head lowered just a little lower than the bench smelling of sitting there much too long.

He'll make a friend for her lonely and thinking thinking lonely lonely and walking away made for walking away into loneliness he'll make a friend for her lonely and thinking thinking lonely lonely and walking away made for walking away into loneliness pressing her head into his neck choking him he'll make a friend for her lonely and thinking thinking lonely lonely and walking away made for walking away into loneliness next to his loneliness he'll make a friend for her out of what out out of what out of what day what ground to the what day will won't will last against the will against last ground the latest ground too late for filling a dented fingernail extending an image a reflection and not a finger not a hand not a life not in the least.


- Max Stoltenberg

SOWN INTO THE BODILY FUNCTION PARADIGM

Forced laughs and heartburn chalking it up to a grid of hopscotch washed away by a downpour sniffing each other's cracks in each other's arguments behind each other's backs to the beginning to the beginning to the beginning that can't be found at least not in the least bit concerned they don't seem to be as concerned as they used others until their makeup ends up ending up on their empty pizza boxes thrown away with what they regurgitated until blue in the face red in the eyes brown in the rear and purple in the private interest more invasive with every opening.

Just for openers while waiting to be terminated.

Zipping up under the chin of the flesh puncturing hose stopping for a bite to surf through channels wedging themselves between two places swept out of memory with each breast stroke.  Letting down another tip here's another tip letting down another tip here's another tip for another sap letting down somewhere in the branch another branch grown letting down another tip here's another tip letting down another tip here's another tip for another sap letting down somewhere in the branch another branch grafted in letting down another tip here's another tip for another sap letting down somewhere in the branch another branch cut off letting down into the dirt by the trunk its roots pushing and pulling where to walk away where to stumble closer letting down into the dirt cut off branches letting down another tip here's another tip letting down another tip here's another tip for another sap letting down somewhere in the looking up at the letting down the letting down of holes between branches letting down breaking up the immense hole of the sky into tinier holes letting down broken up into cells each with its corner for letting down the waste of gaps and holes.

Tuberculosis on the other side of the door there is a knocking on the inside of this frame that doesn't match the landscape of thoughts that can't take a hint tuberculosis on the other side of the door there is a knocking on the inside of this frame that doesn't go well with the landscape of thoughts that can't take a hint pounding pounding headache cracked into odd pieces with an incongruent chisel.  Sheets torn open with public confessions and private parts let the cat out of the bag and into the backseat speeding to the arena showing up before the bell rings tuberculosis on the other side of the door there is a knocking on the side of this frame that doesn't match the landscape of thoughts.

Coined terms have spilled out and roll downhill gathering no use for drinking songs voided onto the discolored sidewalk as coined terms fall off the curb into the gutter.  It was at this juncture at this intrusion upon the last round the last next to last stream of not letting his worm the subordinated underling devote his attention to things diamond and kite-shaped (as well as canine-shaped not so much as in the dog but as in the tooth) and draw hardly an infinitesimal bit of his effort of cognition toward the drenching of his trousers with piss.

"Wet yourself again, sir," said Expectorant looking away as the legs in the soaked pants followed the choreography of a fallen alarm clock messing about the ground pathetically insisting on continuing to collide with the Earth unimpressed with its meteoric and anti-climactic descent.

"Sire," corrected Haphazard managing rather chaotically to reach a position of sitting up on the street corner and in an attempt to look regal or sage-like he placed his hands on his knees and feeling the urine in the material cleared his throat.  

"I apologize Your Magisterial Seepage," answered Expectorant, "my forgetfulness is held in place within my constricted nostrils in the presence of your silent but deadly e."

"Perhaps it would be better for me if I made all your words silent and bathed myself in quiet," Haphazard said.

"I eagerly await your return to the waters of a bath but who am I to hope?  And don't trouble your benevolent self to answer that question.  They are all still here in here," Expectorant said tapping the side of his head and picking at his finger after it had come in contact with his hair.  Continuing he mentioned, "All those hallways and rooms I tried to fill with my anger when others tuned me out all those steps I ascended and descended forcing all the shit I was supposed to give about anything to settle in the bottom of every muscle until the only remaining field of interest left to me was the septic one," said Expectorant.

"Hallways of a thickening darkness due to a lack of windows, a preponderance of windowless walls, or a dying Sun make my stately brainpan itch beneath my fastigium," remarked Haphazard.

"Your fastigium was blown off in a strong dry wind.  Are you sure it's not your scalp eczema?" said Expectorant.

"You retrieved it for me like a penitent mutt," exclaimed Haphazard.

"It was you who in the end placed it back upon your moldering brow when I assisted you in finding the express lane to go fuck yourself," said Expectorant.

"Then where is it now?" asked Haphazard.

"I don't know exactly, but it disappeared into that traffic you threw it into during one of your histrionic and tiresome anecdotes," said Expectorant beginning to see images of cars, trucks, tires, headlights, and something resembling treasure and a mine-shaft cave-in."

"Histrionic and tiresome anecdotes, yes, I was planning on proceeding with one until you opened your disgusting well of a yap.  I ought to wire it shut.  There's enough barbed wire about.  Of course, I would command you to do it yourself.  Ah, traffic.  It used to line up in my honor for miles.  I would wave to them and their faces registered a hearty laughter behind glass windshields increasingly obscured ever so a testimony to the changing variety of what would tend to fall from the sky.  The only occasions I could see faces was when they opened up so they could toss their gifts to me.  Their humble intentions was only marred by their poor aim.  My person, I suppose, was willing to be a banquet table for their recently purchased groceries since my halls were blanketed in the fogs of my many campaigns.  Hallways of thickening dark was where I began," said Haphazard.

"Until I interrupted you with a question my leech," interrupted Expectorant.

"Not a question you fool.  'Twas a limerick or other and you still need to work on your articulation," said Haphazard wringing the cuff of his left trouser leg to squeeze out some excess piss only to discover that he succeeded in cracking off some crust of some kind.  Haphazard kicked at Expectorant and said, "Now get on with it."

"Get on with what?" asked Expectorant.

"Get on with your limerick you mucus membrane," spluttered Haphazard.

"I'd rather you just try to start again and I can keep interrupting you my leash," said Expectorant.

"Come on you essence of what's underneath the refrigerator, I'll even feed you some of my own lines I've been working on since your production malfunctions have only become worse of late," said Haphazard.

"Don't let your criticism be biased by my most recent stretchers," insisted Expectorant.

"They never made it quite above a couple of notches below utter failure," said Haphazard.

"I was suffering from strokes on each occasion, O Hollow One," said Expectorant.

"And yet here you are still at my beckon call to receive my words as my own generosity to aid you in your time of waning adeptness at limerick-making. Now do try to summon what flickering spark remains within you to pay some feeble attention as I feed you the lines," announced Haphazard.

"The only lines you feed me are your insufferable sentences and the strings of snot from your nostrils," muttered Expectorant.

Haphazard recited the following,

"There once was a king on the lam
No one denied that he was a sham
The winds blew him this way
And the winds blew him that way
And all he could blow was a ram."

"And this is an excerpt from your upcoming oral memoir?" inquired Expectorant.

"No, someone else's.  A fair lady spoke it to me when I happened upon her in a forest," said Haphazard.

"I know you're old and decrepit, but certainly not old enough for forests.  Are you sure you didn't pull this out of one of your nightmares or demented states when stumbling into a patch of weeds?" asked Expectorant.

"Your attention deficit is legend.  Perhaps I overestimated your threshold for side quests," said Haphazard.

"My day is made out of side quests," said Expectorant.

"That's because you waste so much time with your commentary instead of just taking my words as they are," said Haphazard.

"You would rather I focus on what gunk is spit from your mouth than all the things you have broken?" said Expectorant.

"You don't appreciate how hard it is to find things to break," said Haphazard, "parts need to be made smaller.  Threatening lumps of sugar and asteroids need to be chunked down.  Don't want any cataclysms scaring you half to death."

Expectorant replied, "Why stop at half to death?  Oh, that's right, you have to live longer in order to have regrets."

"Want to know what else the fair lady said to me?" asked Haphazard.

"When would you have had any contact with anyone else?" Expectorant asked.

"I wander off when you are not aware of it," said Haphazard, "she spoke of her last love affair and the shapes she would imagine in the smoke of his pipe and then entertain him with stories of animals piloting spaceships fueled by their recycled bodily discharges as they searched for another planet to colonize in the far back section of their galaxy that they have been told by their latest chatter show guests is inhabited by those who walk around with their hands in their pockets a species consisting entirely of non-functioning males.  To smoke a pipe like I once did and watch the smoke wrap its way through the top of a hedge.  I could tuck myself in a corner of a hedge and envy the smoke that would fade away."

"I wish you would wander off for real.  Women will be better off the less contact they have with us.  Until then I am condemned to a universe doomed to run parallel to oblivion and never meet it none too soon," said Expectorant.

"Don't be impertinent.  Nothing is stopping you from following me," said Haphazard.

"It must be where I started off.  I began with wonder and then I remember every once in a long while to do it again and it only seems to stir up a sense of wondering when I'll be sick and tired enough to stop accepting your promises of us eventually finding a better place," said Expectorant.

"Would you like to see me levitate?" asked Haphazard.

"You mean stand up?" clarified Expectorant.

"What is the purpose behind your name?" inquired Haphazard.

"You mean besides loosening a congestive build-up?" asked Expectorant.

"No, what device does it serve for those who who ..." asked Haphazard.

"For those who what?" asked Expectorant.

"For those for those who might encounter our words?" asked Haphazard.

"Encounter our words?  Unhinged is what we are unhinged since we encountered that so-called invisible point in our lives you and me you and me both.  We sat at a desk in a row of boxes and that was when they documented.  After we were asked to leave that was when the documenting stopped once we became unhinged," said Expectorant.

"So, you don't think we'll ever be remembered or we're even being watched?" asked Haphazard.

Expectorant replied, "Only if you drop dead before me.  Although I dream of it being the other way around."

"Why don't you think we're being observed?" asked Haphazard.

"Observed?  Are you kidding?  Don't you see the blinds being drawn shut in the windows that aren't covered up yet?  And most of the homes still standing have the telltale signs of boards and the barbed wire.  Observed.  Gave up my observing long ago when growing up and it was every night at dinner observed my mother rocking from side to side in her chair at the table.  The oldest chair she said was passed down to her from her great-great-grandmother and I always thought she was comforting herself in it.  Until one night when the power went out and in the dark I bumped into the chair and sat in it.  It seemed to swing my entire body as if out over the edge of some primordial chasm.  I tried to escape its instability and ended up smashing into the dining room wall.  With the ruckus I caused one would have thought someone in the dark would have voiced some concern, but their voices remained silent until they started cursing at each other in their growing frustration at not being able to find any flashlights with working batteries.  And I returned to it," said Expectorant.

"Returned to what?" asked Haphazard.

"Returned to the chair.  I returned to it because it was the light.  I knew the light was going to come back on at any moment and I needed to get used to sitting on that chair in the darkness even though it felt like it was about to give way I was just going to have to get used to it," said Expectorant.

"Be honest with me, am I turning into a zombie?" asked Haphazard.

"A zombie?" asked Expectorant.

"I am a creature of habit you must concede that," said Haphazard.

"If you put it in that fashion . . ." wavered Expectorant.

"Well?  Am I zombie or not?" asked Haphazard in his demanding tone.

"You might find the monotonous rhythm of your mechanical walking through the stench of washes and abandoned towns and yet another expanse of wasteland hard to snap out of but all you have to do is turn around and find me there right behind with the same mechanical walking.  I don't know.  Why are you asking me?  I think the actual zombies are in the houses untouched watching the colored lights flashing inside that can be seen through their windows until they draw the blinds shut," said Expectorant.

"And that's the extent of your explanation for why you still think we are not being observed?" asked Haphazard.

"You talk as if we're in some kind of medium," said Expectorant.

"Aren't we?  When I think I might be turning into a zombie I feel not quite myself and unreal as though in a medium of some kind as you say unhinged by someone else for someone else," said Haphazard.

"The medium we find ourselves in is a solution of air.  It's supposed to be good for our brains, but by the time we've managed bailing out the last bucket of air from our lungs the maggot of life has eaten deep enough into the center of our skulls to send us going around in circles wrapping our yarns around one of the few testicles to seed in the cosmos," said Expectorant.

"Very good.  Now find yourself a pile of filth to bed in for the night and I will call for you at dawn, jester," said Haphazard.

Expectorant asked, "And what would you like me to begin your tomorrow with my sovereign rash?"

Haphazard replied, "The zombie who thought he was a king."

"Never heard of it," said Expectorant, "but I'm sure I'll be able to go from there."

Haphazard yawned, "I'm sure you will."

Just for openers while waiting to be terminated.

Zipping up under the chin of the flesh puncturing hose stopping for a bite to surf through channels wedging themselves between two places swept out of memory with each breast stroke.  Letting down another tip here's another tip letting down another tip here's another tip for another sap letting down somewhere in the branch another branch grown letting down another tip here's another tip letting down another tip here's another tip for another sap letting down somewhere in the branch another branch grafted in letting down another tip here's another tip for another sap letting down somewhere in the branch another branch cut off letting down into the dirt by the trunk its roots pushing and pulling where to walk away where to stumble closer letting down into the dirt cut off branches letting down another tip here's another tip letting down another tip here's another tip for another sap letting down somewhere in the looking up at the letting down the letting down of holes between branches letting down breaking up the immense hole of the sky into tinier holes letting down broken up into cells each with its corner for letting down the waste of gaps and holes.


- Max Stoltenberg

EMBALMING FLUID

The jacket had fallen down between the two chairs and the cloth that had become too greasy for cleaning eyeglasses was caught between the folds as waves of the ocean smashing into each other sinking more of an island being repossessed by the sea of a brain sticking to the envelope gum incapable of making it past the flap.  Jogged one's forgetfulness the blank at the beginnings and ends of run-ins the exchange if you will and you won't.  Nests are for expressions bracketed inside brackets bracketed within chewed off fingernails curving like a plastic dagger into the gum incapable of making it past the flap.  

That was what was that that is that was what was that that was what they what they had they had they had been talking had been talking about during another one of their what had been called by them or by other people.

make it both when it's hard to tell
make it neither when it's hard to tell

Clicking he was clicking on he was clicking out he was clicking out of the corner of his mouth a mechanical accent grounded in teeth flossed using only a held breath even though they kept on with the reminders to take it in and lay there while the reminders and the rubber mask is lowered to the sound of taking it in coming up the back of the throat into the front of the mind chewing on a condemning voice starting with the tissue wall making a hole in the cheek digging in towards that voice the voice swimming deeper between the grooves deeper deeper between the grooves between the two chairs the jacket had fallen down between the two chairs and the cloth that had become too greasy for cleaning eyeglasses was caught between the folds as waves of the ocean smashing into each other sinking more of an island being repossessed by the sea of a brain sticking to the envelope gum incapable of making it past the flap.  Jogged one's forgetfulness the blank at the beginnings and ends of run-ins the exchange if you will and you won't.  Nests are for expressions bracketed inside brackets bracketed within chewed off fingernails curving like a plastic dagger into the gum incapable of making it past the flap.  

"I would have settled."
"I've wanted to know this."
"You've wanted to know what?"
"I thought I did, but that has sailed off."
"Sailed off for whereabouts?"
"Sailed off is not for whereabouts."
"What's happened to your big toenail then?"
"Sailed off is for paper airplanes and bolo testicles."
"Paper boats and bolo balls you mean."
"And severed lily pads."
"What did you do to your big toenail?"
"Which one are you getting at?  They're all swollen."
"The biggest one."
"They're all the biggest one."
"Look there at that one the especially hideous one," she said  without pointing until stumbling over a medium-sized mound before she had a chance to think again of the time she had thought of a comeback and everyone had already left and in hurrying to catch up with them she had stepped into a fresh mess.
"I've lost track of how many times you've sent yourself blundering over that same dung heap."
"It's not a dung heap."
"Dung mound."
"It's a medium-sized mound."
"With some dung on it."
"With some dung on it.  I'll grant you that."
"Why don't you see it coming by now with all the times we've been through it in here?"
"I do see it."
"Then why don't you avoid it?"
"Avoid is for crotches and skulls."
"A weekend with the mother-in-law and my life."
"And an overdue trip to the can."
"Would be nice if we could find a can."
"Would be even better if we could find our way out of here."

A justification
was dropped in conversation
a conversation was dropped
in justification of being
being neutered

"Would be nice if we could find a can."
"Would be even better if we could find our way out of here."
"I told you we should have asked a neighbor for help."
"We did and they got lost in the alley as well."
"Well, where are they then?"
"I don't know.  We lost them."
"Them?  I don't recall there being more than one.  And I don't think you can recall there being more than no one at all."
"You mean you don't remember when we were trying to follow behind along the way we were told would lead us out and the last time I saw the back of their coat they quickly turned that corner and disappeared.  I remember because you were staggering yet again over the dung mound at that point."
"I'm standing next to the berm and there's no corner."
"They must have moved it when we were attacked by that trash bin."
"No one moved it and you were the instigator in all those trash bin fights."
"I was not the instigator in all of the bin battles.  And did you refer to the mound as a dung berm?"
"If I had?"
"You're unable to see the corner due to the fog."
"Have you been told that you are perpetually in one?"
"Me and others have never really been on speaking terms.  I've always had trouble connecting with others, but they certainly haven't had any difficulty connecting with me with my head more specifically for some reason.  I just explain it  as they like to talk with their hands."
"I was forced to see a puppet show against my will."
"I am in a puppet show and was forced to see my will."
"There it is again."
"You're not going to take this rather grim opportunity to mock my will are you?"
"No, there it is again, that dog bark."
"What about it?"
"I could have sworn I heard it before."
"When?"
"When?  That is the question isn't it?"
"Isn't it? is the question."
"Isn't it? is for blisters and snakes digesting antelopes."
"An egg missing the frying pan and puppeteers out of dark clothes."
"Or women comfortable with small breasts."
"There it is again."
"That doesn't sound like a dog bark."
"I believe they occur in clusters of 4."
"You mentioned food."
"My apologies.  You let me get away with your hearing me swallow my own snot the other day."
"The other day falls off of us unnoticed now.  I used to see little thin small flaky bits of it floating in the light that would come in the window when I used to live on the inside side of a window.  Now I can't even see over alley walls to catch a glimpse of the outside side of any.  It was cream."
"Cream?  Did you say cream?"
"It was a cream color.  I thought I could see a two-story home that was a cream color when I heard that dog bark.  It stood out because it looked like it was outside the alley and if we could just get to it we could be on our way."
"Every home has two stories.  Some get away with only having to use one."
"If I had a home again."
"You won't let me mention food so why should you get to talk about home?"
"If I had a home again I would put a giant duck in front of it."
"What are you ranting about?"
"A mallard with the bright green head.  Have you ever seen one of them?  I've only seen a picture of one in a book and that was the female that doesn't even have the glossy green head.  Someone told me about the males having the shimmering green head.  I think it was my uncle who told me."
"Is that the one who died?"
"No they're still alive or were they on life support?"
"You said you had 2 no 5 on life support including your mother-in-law who was missing her bottom half."
"Her better half you dolt."
"You say you saw a picture of a duck in a book.  I've never seen one - duck or book.  I don't think anyone buys any.  I don't see any being given away anymore.  I'd be glad to make it out of this maze of an alley and be able to see a driveway again.  Then I could show you all the books no one gives away."
"If I had a home again I'd put a duck on it a mallard that was a hundred feet tall just so I could tell people how to get to my house.  I could say, just look for the house with the hundred foot tall mallard in front of it."
"That doesn't sound like a dog bark.  You ever realize how much a yawn sounds like someone crying?"
"It was her bottom half that was missing.  She was run over by a bus."
"Unsupportive boss?"
"Actually I don't have a mother-in-law.  I've never been married."
"Were we paired up by a mutual friend or enemy?  Or have we never actually met?"
"We've never actually met.  Never got around to the introductions thing."
"What's the point right?  I don't think we've ever been outside this alley.  Just dreamed it or something."
"I used to complain about being moved into the wrong bracket now I think it's just an erroneous parentheses."
"You want an over-sized symbol on a front lawn you can't water of a house you can't get to just so you can be found."
"Never got around to the introductions."

The jacket had fallen down between the two chairs and the cloth that had become too greasy for cleaning eyeglasses was caught between the folds as waves of the ocean smashing into each other sinking more of an island being repossessed by the sea of a brain sticking to the envelope gum incapable of making it past the flap.  Jogged one's forgetfulness the blank at the beginnings and ends of run-ins the exchange if you will and you won't.  Nests are for expressions bracketed inside brackets bracketed within chewed off fingernails curving like a plastic dagger into the gum incapable of making it past the flap. 


- Max Stoltenberg

LEAVES OF TABLE LEAVES

It's going to be without notice now or has been for longer than the cracked window tells how the outside world outside is filling up with ink dark ink closing in on the sound of feet or paws rubbing against a rug laid with the darker hues of what feet or paws track into a rug from the outside world outside that is filling up with ink dark ink closing in on the sound of feet or paws rubbing against the floor of a nightmare that won't dissolve.  Better off without socks with socks off worse off with them with the odor got used got used to walking along through the stench of feet.  It was the itching the bloody itching not bloody anymore that crusted up and that sticks to the threads sticking to the inside scratching stuck to the inside trying to pull away trying to pull away the threads that stick to the crust to the itching bloody itching not bloody anymore that crusted up and that sticks to the threads sticking to the inside scratching stuck to the inside.

"Are you going to keep up with me?"
"Keep up?  I thought I was leading the way."
"Well, yes, you were until I decided to turn around."
"You're still facing me."
"I am in the process."
"The process of what?  Turning around?"
"No.  The process of deciding.  The process of my decision."
"Don't be turning your back on me!" he shouted as he cut the air with the exclamation mark he brandished like a baseball bat the aluminum kind.
"I thought you might prefer me expediting the process."
"Well, not so fast.  You don't want your decision to be premature."
"You're arranging it so you can keep leading the way."
"In actuality. . ."
"Here we go again."
"Here I go again with what?"
"With your actuality.  That usually means another serious deterioration in air quality."
"I can certainly add that embellishment.  In actuality, I'm getting fed up with leading the way."
"That's because you don't know what it is, do you?"
"It's because I know it too well.  There comes a time in a man's life -"
"And a woman's."
"And a woman's life when you'd rather let someone else have a chance to experience covering the same familiar ground for a change until it rotates back to your turn and you spend most of your turn emptier and emptier waiting for someone else to come smack face to face with the trudging and then it isn't too long before their reaction doesn't have the effect it had the first time it's never the same after that when you share your tickets to monotony."
"Give us a dirge."
"You want a dirge?"
"Give us a dirge a swampish dirge."
"There once was a man -"
"Not one of those."
"There once was a woman -"
"Somewhat better, but not one of those."
"The dead rabbit lay there all night on the ice cold driveway of the washed-up magician's residence.  Its severed foot -"
"That is so contrived."
"Tail.  I was going to say its severed tail could be found by the mailbox."
"That's even more contrived."
"I could have said its severed tail was in the mailbox and I didn't say that.  I'm experimenting."
"All of this is a bad experiment."
"There were these people who took me in and I was taken in all right."
"Found a bottle of medication.  Must've dropped out of someone's coat pocket when they were putting air in their tires."
"They used extension cords.  You just might think twice every time you make comments about the way I walk."
"I congratulate you on the way you walk."
"Don't you think that's a bit over the top?  A bit useless and insincere?"
"Insincere, yes, but not useless."
"2 out of 3 ain't bad."
"When were you taken in?"
"Once or twice, I think."
"Twice?  You let the same people treat you like shit?"
"They looked like they were getting on older and seasoned seasoned wine and talked so different all about plans and I was not to be excluded someone had a plan for my life."
"I was twisting that medicine bottle and the plastic was grinding and grinding and finally when I got it open instead of that cotton ball, I was expecting to find a severed rabbit tail."
"And you found a cotton ball."
"Just the pills."
"Just the pills."
"Just the pills."

Slowing the steps not to understand them any better for being rescheduled when you try to say it again another chance and it won't come out the way it sounded in your head in your head where it won't come out the way it sounded in your head in your head where it won't come out slowing slowing down the steps not to understand them any better for being rescheduled when you try to say it again another chance and it won't come out the way it sounded in your head in your head where it won't come out the way it sounds in your head slowing down in your head slowing down slowing down the steps not to understand them any better.


- Max Stoltenberg

UNNECESSARY

Those questions come around again like that nauseous feeling that was believed to have faded away that gets the body stumbling stumbling over itself.  Here they are again spreading out through a growing hole in the crotch of a pair of pants drifting up to the nostrils reminders of the curled up wet cigarette ruined in a spot on the pavement by someone's urine a pissy attitude spreading out those questions there they are again spreading out through a growing hole in the crotch of a pair of pants drifting and drifting up to the nostrils reminders of thoughts wrapped up inside the skull like a rotted garden hose stinking back out those questions into mutterings those questions there they are again spreading out through a growing hole in the crotch of a pair of pants drifting up to the nostrils reminders of talking out of one's ass.

unnecessary for a beginning
unnecessary for an end
only an on and on
loquacious and laconic
too early don't wait
too late don't bother

eyelids lifted overhead
lashes sucked into pupils
black holes
what's the matter?
what's the matter?

unnecessary for a beginning
unnecessary for an end
only an on and on

"What's the matter?"
"What's the matter?"
"I asked you first."
"You asked me first."
"And?"
"And what?"
"Never mind.  Something's obviously the matter."
"Obviously."
"I said never mind."
"Then never your mind."

Tap the glass.  They said not to do it.  Not to this glass but other glass the one they said not to tap on even though everyone else would tap on it for a joke most laughed except for can't remember her name started with an R or a J was it no think she had a small r somewhere towards the end or perhaps a t or two always appreciated a couple of t's she must have taken them with her somewhere out from behind the glass that was certainly not for tapping until they told you to leave not meant to be part of a team suppose so got out from behind the glass not for tapping even thought everyone else would.  Tap the glass at the end of the street that ends at the hills those mounds where they dump things tap the glass.  They said not to do it.

"What's the matter?"
"What's the matter?"
"There you go again now get up."
"Can you wait until I finish throwing up?"
"You're dry heaving."
"Look you missed it."
"Missed what?  A chunk?"
"No.  It was a bit of string.  You missed it floating off that way," and she indicated with her soiled left hand pointing down the street.
"Looked more like a feather.  Did you find a dead bird again that the cats missed?"
"You weren't even looking.  You just want me to get up again so you can try kicking me in the shins this time.  I used to think you did it to watch how I fall.  I used to think your hope revolved around the possibility of me landing on my face.  Land on those crusty lips of yours you're thinking to yourself.  Kiss the sidewalk with those thinning lips of yours you tell yourself as you wander around when you can't find me for a couple of days when I manage some nasty peace for myself accompanied only by the sounds of what's trying to escape from my own body.  It was a piece of string you fuckhead."
"From what?  A dress that isn't here right now?  It's sorry to say that it couldn't join us?  Gone somewhere in a half made-up story of yours half-baked in that dead nest of filthy hair where any interest in you contrived enough to drag you along until you start yammering and yammering to drown out that he won't be coming he won't be coming."
"Think it was from my underwear."
"I thought you gave up on trying to scrounge up any.  Get up."
"You're such a do-it-yourself guy.  Take hold of it.  It's at the end of your race.  Claim your shitty prize.  Drink deep.  Dig in.  And you can spread your word across the desert that grows with each fistful you take each clump of baldness you make in the strands left limp in the wake of the trichotillomania of reality."

Out from behind the glass that was certainly not for tapping until they told you to leave not meant to be part of a team suppose so got out from behind the glass not for tapping even thought everyone else would.  Tap the glass at the end of the street that ends at the hills those mounds where they dump things tap the glass.  They said not to do it.  Not meant to be said not to do it got out from behind the glass until they told you to leave not meant to be out from behind the glass tap the glass not meant to be.


- Max Stoltenberg

MUZZLED GURGLINGS

There's a lock must've gotten that when when when that metal is hot the Sun only gives life now to what can't be touched don't touch turn around and and not much can be turned around much.  It'll still be there where the alarm lifts your fucking back back into the dark morning that gets darker deeper into winter as it goes deeper went deeper last night no not last deeper didn't want it wasn't there hasn't been there when when when that metal is hot the Sun only gives life now to what can't be touched don't touch turn around and and not much can be turned around much.  The shadow moves on over the road shoving shoving like a tractor shoving like a tractor the light off further out of getting to only the shadow just beyond the windshield holding the wheel with one hand looser and looser she always said "use two hands" for what? for this? on ahead for the shadow moves on over the road shoving shoving like a tractor shoving like a tractor the blurry light off further out of getting to only the shadow shoving shoving like a tractor shoving like a tractor the blurry light blurry and gloppy rubbing both of these cruddy eyes with the other hand trying to get the whatever out of these cruddy eyes lids with the red lumps coming back again again gloppy eyes gloppy light shoved by the shadow shoved by the shadow covering the road shoving shoving like a tractor shoving like a tractor the gloppy blurry light off further out of getting to only the shadow shoving shoving.

"I'm not paying anyone any more compliments anymore."
"How could you?"
"How could I?"
"Yeah, how could you?"
"How could I what?"
"How could you pay?"
"I can't even turn my pockets out.  They've been ripped out or fallen away."
"To poke their collapsed faces out by your ankles and shaken away as you kick out your legs kicking out whatever else you have hanging around still in there dislodged when you shake a leg so to speak."
"So to speak.  And while I'm at it I may as well include that I might as well not open my mouth any more.  It just might dislodge whatever stupidity I've been suppressing all these hours or minutes.  Holding my breath feeling my ears throb and knowing the stagnant water of life will come flooding back into my head carrying with it your replies your replies that happen to have made their way to the top of the nearest bin others have been digging through and shuffling around the same 5 or 6 replies doesn't even seem that many."
"Has to be more than that."
"What makes you so sure?"
"There's the one about the 3 failures looking through bins themselves and what would you think of that?"
"How come you never seem to fall over standing in that manner?"
"What manner?"
"Without your toes touching the ground."
"You're becoming deficient in yet another area."
"Maybe, but look how your toes are lifted up like that.  Can't you feel the strain in your little muscles down there or has that gone extinct?"
"You're raving and tangential."
"Logarithmic you mean."
"Not even, however, if you do need to go just crack a window."
"I thought you scrawled that onto your list of sanctions after what I did to my hand."
"I did but when it comes to being able to breathe I have to make some exceptions.  Irregularities for the irregular, you know and you would know.  What a bloody mess you made."
"When it comes down to not wanting to breathe and the loss of blood being in pursuit of accomplishing one's emptiness can't even go all the way and bleed to death.  Wasn't a total loss unfortunately haven't bothered to getting around to clearing the threads out of the sink."
"Loss of bone, too.  I think I stepped on a piece of one of your knuckles."
"I thought it was 2 failures."
"Last I checked it was 3 failures.  Standing around bins."
"Thought this was based on us."
"Nothing is based on us.  What were you thinking?"
"The usual."
"The unusual you mean.  One of them has made quite a mound of things in his bin so that a considerable section of crap topples over the edge.  He decides to sit on the ground next to the spillage and take another excavative look at his initial rejections."
"Which one of them?"
"I'm getting to that."
"No, I mean which one of the failures is doing this sits on the ground with his spillage?"
"The first or the second.  Who cares?"
"Sitting down on the ground with his spillage.  The whole thing is beginning to sound like some metaphoric exercise in self-stimulation."
"Actually it was the third chap failure that is."
"The third one failure that is?"
"Yes, can I get back to the spillage?"
"Now it wouldn't be the third failure after all if you had stuck to only 2 and made it more based on us.  That's me saying this.  Me the one who cares.  That's who cares."
"I thought you stopped caring."
"I did.  You just can't remember."
"Because you keep coming out of fucking retirement."
"Not the overarching stuff.  I gave that up for good the last time we almost got caught trying to fill in the gaps in our wardrobe at the laundromat.  It's just the trivial shit I come out for."

Harnessing spit backing up into the face where it has its potential for misgivings read that wrong passing through doorways and stopping in one of them got a belt loop caught on a missed gesture not missed didn't miss a thing couldn't possibly respond with that clay pressed to form something that would be called lips lowering under the upper shelf of the refrigerator dark and empty like the hallways of school walking around as they stretch further apart think no one to see the face being made think clay pressed to form something that would be called lips lowering under the upper shelf of the refrigerator dark and empty like the hallways of school walking around as they stretch further apart thought that was a grade a voice somewhere in the walls down the hallway further on saying a grade whispering it or shouting it far away.

"The third bloke failure is sitting there next to his spillage on the ground."

And there was a pause.

"Go on."
"You're looking at me like a dog I came upon out near an abandoned substation."

And there was a pause.

"And how did he look at you?"
"She."
"How did she look at you?"
"Like I was going to take everything that troubled me out on her."

And there was a pause.

"And are you going to take everything that troubled you out on me?"
"Troubles.  Everything that troubles me.  Currently.  More has accumulated since then."

And there was a pause.

"And are you going to take everything that troubles you out on me?"

And without a pause, he answered.

"I haven't decided yet."

And without a pause, she put to him another question.

"What kind of dog was she?"
"Are you inquiring about my dog or about my wife?"
"You never had a wife."
"We were married in spirit."
"You never had a spirit."
"That's true.  And you never had one either."
"Dispossessed we are.  I remember I was invited when I was a child to another kid's birthday party.  I think his name was Erik."
"Erika."
"Erika, that's right.  You do have a good memory."
"It only seems that way because yours is so atrocious."
"I practice my forgetting due to all the insults."
"You pull them out of the contaminated and distended lake of your unconscious when it suits you."
"No matter the overcast haze of affirmations I have received, the teeth marks of invective come to mind more easily for some reason."
"Some reason."
"The third failure dug into his spillage of prior rejections and pulled out a poem."
"It wasn't a poem.  Let me tell it."
"And the poem was an adaptation of an illness."
"No poetry.  Let me tell it.  You'll ruin it."
"That's why I'm here.  The deformed block sticking conspicuously out of the hole in this part of the world.  Before you wore out the last pair of shoes you ever had you used to hammer another verse out of me."

She hung
She hung his picture
She hung his picture of his hanging
Where it hung 
until he was dead 
where he hung 
in the halls of his mind
where he hung
in his picture of his hanging
where she hung
hung his picture of his hanging
where it hung
from the scaffolding 
of her mind 
where she hung
herself
only
in her mind

"I seem to recall that we used to imagine we were staying for a night at a hotel."
"I thought we were in a hotel."
"You're imagining things."
"What?  Do you think this place isn't a hotel?"
"A burned out one."
"Burned out?  Us or the hotel?"
"Both.  What a pair.  Now can I get back to the 3 failures?"

And there was a pause again.  Somewhat like the one 2 pauses back being the antepenultimate also known as the third one from the end.  

"What did they find in their spillage?"
"Not poetry I can tell you if you let me tell it."
"Spillage.  That still sounds wrong or third rate at best."
"I think you're just unwilling to admit your own stimulation."
"I am peripherally aroused."
"Do tell."
"I try to keep you in the corner of the whites of my own eyes.  It's a security precaution.  You do understand?"
"Entirely.  Offense taken.  There was a party in that spillage."
"I'm sure there was.  Behind every party is a spillage.  I mean, behind every spillage is a party of some sort.  Just as the birthday party I was invited to."
"Either way."
"As a child."
"At this party one of the women there noticing that it seemed as if more than half the people had left she took it upon herself to clean up.  What appeared as less than half of the people who remained in a stupor standing there like the damaged pillars of a storm-battered boardwalk began to slowly converge on the woman with the excessive amounts of drinks and food.  Down the drain, please! she would bellow as they took turns standing before her.  And the night thickened to the sound of her voice instructing Down the drain, please!"


Harnessing spit backing up into the face where it has its potential for misgivings read that wrong passing through doorways and stopping in one of them got a belt loop caught on a missed gesture not missed didn't miss a thing couldn't possibly respond with that clay pressed to form something that would be called lips lowering under the upper shelf of the refrigerator dark and empty like the hallways of school walking around as they stretch further apart think no one to see the face being made think clay pressed to form something that would be called lips lowering under the upper shelf of the refrigerator dark and empty like the hallways of school walking around as they stretch further apart thought that was a grade a voice somewhere in the walls down the hallway further on saying a grade whispering it or shouting it far away.

"I was invited to this birthday party when I was a child by another kid in my neighborhood named Erik."

"Erika."

"Erika.  And his family."

"Her family."

"And her family had invited this clown.  He had his own television show and I was freaked out when they turned on their set and he appeared in it.  I thought we were going to each get transported into the television set and I was wondering when I would be next when I got the hint they were trying to take a picture of Erik with the clown."

"Erika."

"Erika and the clown were posing for a picture.  I stood there and faced the clown looking at his colors.  I thought he had a really big hat until I felt how big his feet his shoes were when one of them kicked me away out of the picture. I found it easier to live in a kennel than a home.  I could turn my back on it all.  They'd shake me out of the box to get my attention my attention to them and where it was really devoted?  To finding the corners.  That's where they wanted me anyway so they could go about their business paying no attention so the pet could adjust to its new setting.  My setting where it belonged out of the picture."

she always said "use two hands" for what? for this? on ahead for the shadow moves on over the road shoving shoving like a tractor shoving like a tractor the blurry light off further out of getting to only the shadow shoving shoving like a tractor shoving like a tractor the blurry light blurry and gloppy rubbing both of these cruddy eyes with the other hand trying to get the whatever out of these cruddy eyes lids with the red lumps coming back again again gloppy eyes gloppy light shoved by the shadow shoved by the shadow covering the road shoving shoving like a tractor shoving like a tractor the gloppy blurry light off further out of getting to only the shadow shoving shoving.

she always said "use two hands" 

for what?


- Max Stoltenberg