skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Take a deep spluttering
anticipation of nothing new
that's why it left my mouth
and is dead on the floor
between us trying not to bump heads
foreheads or clacking eyeglasses
to turn our faces at angles
all tried before
stiff sprained necks before
bodies wrinkling apart
folding into ourselves
caving in sluggishly
the ceiling lowering us
down into the worms
and the maggots
that suck the last
meaningless versions
of what we say
of gestures made
cadaverous language
by any other tongue
sticks to the roofs
of our shadows
- Max Stoltenberg
I want a disease suspended over my regrets to let fall its shroud of loathing and abhorrence which having tumbled down the stairs of her annoyance and the corridors of her trauma that will jump across the ravine of disgust to plummet to the labyrinth of stolen minds below. They make their way something else's way who are we kidding who am I beyond the name and the numbers and the log-ins and the passwords coated with special characters distractions from the grout between letter tiles word rooms phrase buildings communities sentenced to drudge up continuations. This brain rests on fists deflating with lack of interest in the next day propped up with unfolded laundry.
"Where is it?"
"Look to the right?"
"Are you sure?
"I was giving an example?"
"You're making this up?"
"Making? Am I making something?"
"Aren't you?"
"You're asking me? For the past who knows my lungs have been exhaling question marks?"
"Do you think I'm tired of telling? Do you think I've had it with suggesting? Do you think I'm done with wondering?"
"When it was all sent away for salvage? Is that what they're calling it? Salvage? Housing it all under anxiety?"
"What did we call it before that?"
"Were you talking to me?"
"Is there someone else here?"
"Does there have to be someone else here?"
She fell asleep on the couch and dreamed of food that thawed into people she had tried to get away from and they kept showing up in different guises different contexts the same baskets the same carts the same accidents running across the desert and slowing down into the neighborhoods exhausted grinding to a halt in the beds soaked with the condensation of disappointment.
"What did we call it before that?
"Were you talking to me?"
Bends in the water in their bottles water bottles knocked over by their misunderstanding each other half hearing each other over their laptops looking down into the light from below seeping out of tragedies that hold less of an anatomy bleeding out of routines that hold less of a memory vomiting out of batteries that hold less of a charge.
"Is there someone else here?"
"Does there have to be someone else here?"
Disrespect for the shadows
The palm rubs the blood
off the table
off the side of a leg
Fingerpainting in shit
letting the other
sample it spit it out
into your darkening eyes
these windows of disbelief
that knew all along
wasn't there wasn't here
to put down your head
pillows of glass and needles
sticking the forgotten
and remembered together
injected with shame
coursing with guilt
through veins of criticism
bulging and thinning
in every breath
polluted with life
- Max Stoltenberg
He is tugging on his words making them longer and thicker pertaining to the trees the family trees the family's tree the family's tree's dispensary for useless phrases falling out of windows onto the sidewalk's gestures cracked with steps made by the woman who was reading about the woman who had given up on poison who had turned to larger blunt things to carry and hit assholes over the head and watch them fall and then smash their fucking faces in whilst not screaming while speaking softly lines that were on the back of the book she was reading not the one one layer out but three layers in we'll get there eventually I say that now she said it already back then on the back of the book and they said it's useless for useless phrases falling out of windows onto the sidewalk's gestures cracked with steps made by the woman who was reading about the woman who had given up on poison the kind that could be found without a trace on the inside of syrupy expressions she took a hose to many times and they would remain sticking to the sides of houses and their adjoining measurements lined up to make him and the others seem taller and be able to predict things things you know the items you've handled with cut hands stinging with the predictions the prophecies of the next day that brought not the summer not yet but the cold wind that would suddenly whip around the corner of her looking away and what comes after the summer comes when it decides like it has anything to choose except that we all stop retreating and marching out and that we just drop dead or fall and have our fucking faces smashed in little craters that no longer look out on the desert polluted with other people little craters that only are looked into and have nothing to say in return never to return to return for the next day that was predicted about and arrived without anything different coming true only coming until the testicles of assumption are replenished with the hot breath of emptiness.
- Max Stoltenberg
Hands are untied and
open for the still stolen
shakes from others
remembering forgetting
hammering into existence
nailed to the continuous illogic
little booklets all over the place
father look at my technique
never mind didn't mean it
every word of it
and there it went I went
with the blended mirage
towards never ever coming
coming quite a bit
into the porcelain in the beginning
those that folded into thirds
flatten it what was said or meant
or not take it away to your
pile of dung what was dug
out of you out of me
by our by what was asked of us
I guess I guess again
not even close and then
the support the hanging down
between the legs
between the buildings closer
to each other and the ground
underground insects scratching
at the inside of your brain
loose teeth bending back
bending forward book-ending
thoughts for distorting sips
louder than the whispers
of meaningless nothings
just nothings all along
where is that log that timber
in the muddy lake
that rocked from side to side
arms burning in the Sun
underground insects scratching
at the inside of your brain
this mind between the buildings
closer to each other and the ground
- Max Stoltenberg
Messed up the bed of the landscape had to move or walk about and they noticed made their noisy reflections on what still hadn't been digested she had to go in we all had to come in through the dog door and wait one at a time one limb at a time not too close respect faded in definition with the smell of each other's unwashed clothes suppose that fancy of yours of mine washed the tilted idea in this spinning cycle waiting for the bell forgot if we set the timer no one else was involved and it was probably for the worst anyway suppose this a pad of paper every page was used up not too many scribblings on each sheet took it for dead and may she rest on my chest until she wakes up and hits me breaks my glasses what's left of them and I look up a sub-optimal glance into the gleam that masturbates that migraine back into existence up the resurrected shaft of this neck stuck out over the sidewalk until someone comes along and cuts it off and the shrugging face no shoulders you know or perhaps that bottle nowhere to be found had its worries explicated and spread across pubic hair crusted with tears of frustration the kind that cannot possibly tear off the crust of worthless disappointment.
"Towards me."
"Towards you?"
"That's what I said."
"That's what I thought."
"No, that's what I thought."
"Then said."
"Then said. You are a pain in the ass."
"I have something."
"Is it about roofs rooftops?"
"Could have been. I don't remember now. It all just flits across from one lobe to another."
"You actually have some lobes left? They haven't untethered them all?"
"There's still some who have it in their heads to finish tearing into mine."
"A little self-absorbed are we?"
"We? Yes, we if we keep keeping at it."
"Yes, if we keep keeping at it."
Blitz shadows make my hands slow down before the sunset or after it doesn't matter when in the final analysis the mouse stopped flashing its family until they were all gone and he had to rely on the alibis of mechanical pencil leads poured onto the table stained with unfinished loathing charcoal embittered by thumbs rubbing their being no longer in favor of anything.
- Max Stoltenberg
This face that face without a licking of the floor the tongue sticking in the wrong side of my thoughts over that way pointing with that finger attached to a gnat narrowed down to one of those waited for it all this time choking coughing on the idea of having chips a bag empty blown away where did it go? the one who knew is no longer here or haven't seen them in a while maybe they got promoted to a position they were not suited for they never got the promotion no one interviewed they did it all internally and that might explain why the rooms in the back the back rooms smell the way they do and they played on while whatever fell out of this head or the one across from it discolored the carpeting or was spread all over the desk between them until it was removed moved out of the way and she wouldn't ask for the tissues just whether it was time to leave should tell from the clock she just asked for permission and that's when the rooms in the back the back rooms and the smell and the playing on they played on while whatever fell out of this head or the one across from it this face that face without a licking of the floor the tongue sticking in the wrong side of my thoughts over that way pointing with that finger attached to a gnat narrowed down to one of those waited for it all this time choking coughing on the idea of having chips a bag empty blown away where did it go? the one who knew is no longer here or haven't seen them in a while.
Then she walked back into the kitchen rubbing her hands and noticing she still held the cigarette she hadn't lit didn't want the rent to go up or how long could she smoke until they found out probably not until after they left and took it out of the deposit they were not going to refund that was when she walked back to the curb that was never finished along the broken collar of the road that sank into the planet the point of entry that reminded one of where you could never quite catch on just a hunch regarding this life thing taking all that that out on bugs the side of the house when we lived there was the wrong house very embarrassing when they asked what I was marking under their window with didn't ask to put it back in or zip up just walked away and chose not to engage just kept walking until the cigarettes ran out still have the lighter hold it with my hands even when tying my shoes always hated laces holes in every pocket and mocking laughter in every corner every pleat of this mind no wonder not much of that not after the man who when he spoke with his eyes the questions stopped and there was no wonder as you walked it was then that the walking started and the wonder stopped and the curb that was never finished along the broken collar of the road that sank into the planet the point of entry that reminded one of where you could never quite catch on always moving trying to move stuck the packing tape any tape roll of tape couldn't find where the tape stuck to itself couldn't quite find where it stuck just turning the roll and turning the roll.
- Max Stoltenberg
Are you going? who are you talking to? speaking with vehemence always liked that don't think it belongs there don't think we belong there don't think I belong here you just don't want to work hard enough and really have an impact you mean like I have on the plumbing in this building when I use the can the shitter I get what you're getting at as well as on my nerves and the recycle bin is there you go again letting yourself be distracted from from what? no I really want to know before the next little blue rectangle fades in in the corner which corner? the bottom right hand corner that's not where that happens then it must happen because you are disagreeing with about details you and your details just to keep me talking no just to keep you and as long as you are still here where did you go? a lock is there thought it was there between a leg of the chair and a leg of the table the only lock is the one that I have to sent a message to the 4th floor and wait who knows how long for them to unlock it and then in the meantime they can heap their judgments on my head as it sinks down lower into the backs of my hands and they won't have to move and confirm your bloody accusations my bloody accusations? you and your warped sense of pretending to be all melancholy and nihilistic you know what you're right and just to prove it to you I'll lock myself in with their own lock my own lock and not ask anyone to open it not because I need them to let me back in to my mistakes, but just to throw myself into it and stay in my room that's what you want you're right that is what I want, but I have to fucking wait until your room is in another house another world you mean I already have that complaining about my fucking morose wanting to be alone and there we have it we you're talking to the wall I know the wall splattered with your snark are you? are you? spit it out I'm trying maybe an eye a complex or the whole damn brain will come out over the rim and splash into where it all goes and I'm sorry you're sick you're sorry you just want to it's your sorry ass way of asking me to be nice to you do something nice for you hold it in my hands and see how it responds to my attention I am an it you are it and who are you talking to? myself I knew all along I know I know and thanks for reminding me that these storage compartments taped together rub together try to hold on to each other and carry on a whatever you want to call it a back and forth a to and fro while you while it waits until the room is in another house another world you mean it means it.
- Max Stoltenberg
