skip to main |
skip to sidebar
The face outside the library was the kind that is abstractly unwelcoming nothing of the sort that could be called or referred to as kind only of a category that keeps you biting your nails and peeling your skin away to the superficial layer clinging to the poles in the ground arched back filling with the wind underneath as the dying trees around are quiet with the arid pause that the abyss over everything below refuses to let its filthy paw off the button. The shoes left behind on the hardening feet petrified with steps in a direction that led to helping no one but a scarecrow arching its back over the wind underneath as the dying trees were quiet in the arid pause maintained by the abyss above and its contemptuous and smothering hand.
When I'm nodding off into the in-between words mouth bent in on itself or the stomach ceiling mind perhaps it is called by the castle wall castle he dropped out the back of his expression his nerves caught in the zipper plastic lips that won't fit around the moldy bread looks like someone put their cigarettes out in it or exhaled their polluted lungs into what was left of that loaf rolled over onto a flattened child covered in two-dimensional bugs sitting beneath the window without glass turn your sweaty head and notice all the piles of books crumpled in front of the library out on the side actually on her side actually as her arm swells as the rest of her body shrivels up due to overdue fees with no one to collect so they say so they thought to say until they showed up on their doorstep laying there dead legs gone pants off no pants must be with the legs might there be kids swinging them legs around pants flapping like a smelly flag.
"It's an empty snow globe is what it is."
"You're still going to have to talk to her."
"That's what happens to snow globes in the desert."
"That's what happens to snow globes in the desert when you throw them against a boulder."
"She's going to spit in my face."
"You think?"
"When I go and talk to her. That's what she's going to do and so I'm putting it off or see if I can starve myself to death."
"You've been doing that. It's just taking longer than you expected than she expected and spit in your face is what will happen next from her to you."
"You need to have a heart attack right now or within the next 6 seconds."
"Why 6? Why couldn't you just pick 5 seconds or 3 seconds maybe better?"
"Right now then heart attack in your chest erupting with death."
"We're dormant my dear fragile shithead."
"It could be her mouth has gotten too dry."
"She's been clearing her throat all morning. I've heard it. Pretty fucking obvious. She's been sick. It'll be mostly phlegm from her to you."
"From her to me."
Cut too many blinds
posted a secret in the tissues
red with dark bleeding
noticeable frankness
this time
for children of stuffed animals
of spilled drinks of allergic reactions
to horns wet with notes
incorrectly scored
dreamed about her
and now she decided
to leave
- Max Stoltenberg
Are you going to reply and waste your breath or hold it as your mind squints for what to say what to avoid pleasures are elusive distractions at this point this bloody point sleeping in a puddle of your woeful tangled dreams faces without mouths or eyes that swallow you and slide you out through the bottom of the toilet back into your bed sleeping in a puddle of your inadequate reaching for something to die at the hands of your breath or hold it as your mind squints for what to say what to avoid punishments so accessible staring focused at this point this bloody point. Leave the message delete the message leave it and try just try to leave them pushed to the side as you look ahead and ejaculate through their eyes that spit you out up through the elevator stumbling out onto the puddle of coffee on your desk stroked by notes spread out so you can keep both your hands on the feet of a job blown up into lists falling as the dark rain of the shit-storm around you around and around the calendar's shaft flipping pages flipping you off to the coffin's putting a lid on it.
"Are you going to say anything?"
"About what?"
"You weren't going to say anything. You were going to pretend or wait for me to do something about it."
"It? Now they're an it?"
"Don't give me your feigned advocacy. You don't give a shit is what it is."
"I give a lot less of a shit is what it is. You'd rather argue than doing something yourself."
"You're the one not doing something. And you just admitted to why. Waiting for me to do something because I give a shit. Waiting waiting for me."
"Making me wait while you'd rather argue. You'd rather argue while you make we wait for you to do something something about the elephant in the room."
"So now it's an elephant?"
"Back to an it again?"
"Yes, an it in the room."
"Who said it's a room?"
"You did."
"I was mistaken."
"You were mistaken?"
"Mistaken about this mistaken about that mistaken about coming here mistaken about leaving there."
"Leaving where?"
"The hole that leads back up into the nothing."
"Nothing?"
"The nothing but quivering worry."
"How long have they been slumped over like that?"
"I don't know. Since their last words I guess."
"And what do you suppose they were?"
"She was saying she had a surprise for when she got home."
"Home? That was no home for her. What did she say?"
"She said I have a surprise for you."
"That's it?"
"She said I have a surprise for you asshole."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
Helmets of hair
Helmets of stickers
Hashtags caught in the crosshairs
And now for something
across the water
to the drummer
under the branches
pages read through waste
floating over the top
over the top
they were
- Max Stoltenberg
Unreliable medicated gestures
False north tied to
epoxy wings
flapping about inside
one's ears
sounds sounds
unclear for today
tomorrow's portions
of leftovers
greening and browning
with webs of discrepancies
been there before
been here
not as certain
as was originally thought
oars in the soup sloshing onto the crotch
supposing to demolish
distanced by fantasy
talk to the palm and the thumb muscle
flexing in the scraping
of the TV tray abandoned
by the empty room's forgetfulness
very bad paste stuck to the ceiling
where your stuck out neck
is stuck
dust from the fan
blanketing the landscape
of your demoralization
what did the dog say?
almost like a profanity
or an apology that it is
rehearsing for us
more gas escaping
out over its fur
depending on the chatter
of forced enrollment
bitter rims of packages
licked with the tongues
peeking over mouths
spilling embarrassment
and unbelieved memories
erased in withholding
- Max Stoltenberg
His nose was about to drip and the elbow rode the anatomy about the outskirts of town like he walked like he drifted like him listening or trying not to listen to the thoughts hitting against the passenger side of his head the rear passenger side thudding in the manner of uneaten fruit disposed of so after the fact so after the complaining deficiencies they were called and brought up as pizza crust forming into hot vomit that was just too large a bite. The napkin holder could deny it all they wanted, but there was no countering the reality its role it had to play in the events leading up to her imprisonment her early release that was never put on the table as they whispered and muttered their opinions of her and her family well they were her family self-deprecation disguised as assertiveness and insults saved for the moment that moment of blankness filling the mind as it does where the void of the universe leaks in through the atmosphere and poisons those who must go through life until death put off by turns in circumstances that send them the uneaten fruit against the passenger side of his head the rear passenger side thudding with notes and the taking of notes that seems to make no difference as the napkin holder could deny it all they wanted telling its dreams broken and pulverized to the wrong person nearby nearby that's what they used to get to her the heartless proximity.
"I was thinking, are you hearing what I'm saying?"
"If you got to the point I could tell you you could tell me if I was hearing anything anything at all if there was a point."
"It's just that you don't look like it like you're hearing me."
"Why not? What am I looking like that doesn't look like I'm hearing you besides you're not getting to the point if there is one?"
"Well, to begin with, you look like you're staring off into space."
"I am staring off into space. It's on my screen at the moment."
"Are you looking outside our galaxy again?"
"And what if I was? Are you going to tell me what is so worth hearing?"
"I was thinking about what my boss said the other day or it might have been the person in the next position above or below them."
"Why would I be interested in what you were thinking about? Decisions and action mostly action is what merits my attention that and actual water with not so much urine in it or the other stuff that gets in there or when the smoke from the burning mounds of bodies starts to lose that really putrid edge to it."
"They said something as they were leaving and locked us in the last time about attitudes and I tried not to make it about me, but, and this is where I get to what I was thinking about I mean really thinking about and when what is between my thoughts the sharp daggers that poke holes through the top of my brain and I notice how when I get something done something that has an appearance that might get their approval and I know it's not because I did anything with my musings or thought differently or more in line or applied any of their nauseating rhetoric it was because I let it go my voice that silence disguised as what might have another sit down next to you when they wondered why you were alone it was a muffling a reticence masquerading as a human with its face to the wall knitting together some bloodless clump of decades together that can be erased in seconds a browning banana peel the limb that once reached for the trap its teeth chattering our name connected with a device not recognized."
Bedtime pressed into milk
past its expiration
who is drumming?
setting on fire those
who stood one behind the other
going back to the start
start over
bare feet naked
and stepping to the rhythm
of the racing heart
fell out the window
of the plane
asleep and the powerful
clouds and the powerful
ripped the sleep
out of my eyes
kept them closed
nothing between them
remained
but returned to annoy
- Max Stoltenberg
Lights on eyes widen
brain contracts the check
is torn into pieces the numbers
run out of room on the sheet
of what she was saying
about high school and what
they should talk about
so she would feel a little bit
more confident in her reasons
her justifications for
why she doesn't belong
what they end up talking about
anyway
without her
on ahead they skip
skip over the part where she
they come back
and make a meal of her
spitting up the bones of her expressions
drying out in the back
"So you're going to play the geometry teacher now?"
"Geometry teacher? What does my saying my ex-husband never took me seriously have to do with my playing a geometry teacher?"
"So you're going to play the master chef now?"
"Master chef? What does my describing how my boss twisted the letter opener after he inserted it into my stomach have to do with my playing a master chef?"
"So you're going to play the gastroenterologist now?"
"Gastroenterologist? What does my mentioning how he was all the time behind my never being able to escape that hellhole have to do with my playing a gastroenterologist?"
"So you're going to play the foodborne parasite now?"
"You're saying that because I forgot about the salad for a couple of weeks? Months?"
"I was referring to what you do to every relationship you've ever been in."
"Foodborne parasite? You're saying that because of all the greasy fast food I never finish or you're saying that because of the sound?"
"The sound?"
"The sound I make?"
"When you do what?"
"When I'm being a parasite?"
"Oh, I thought you meant the other thing."
- Max Stoltenberg
Egregious is a white board background
Destined for discomfort
Weaseling our way out unsuccessfully
Falling off the Earth's foreskin
Didn't know that was still there
Swimming through something that makes us ill
Kept our mouths shut
Allowed to see the answers
Eyes bound open with duct tape
the blue circle smeared
by a shitty thumb
don't mind if you do or don't
doesn't matter to us
inserting double spaces
violating laws of motion
in front of the television
remote up his ass
erasers in his ears
Do you know what your number is?
won't be able to get there in time
Never could
Falling off the Earth's foreskin
Didn't know that was still there
Swimming through something that makes us ill
Kept our mouths shut
until we stick our necks out
Past the door-frame of the womb
- Max Stoltenberg
If it was that he looked in the mirror and saw nothing or that he saw something was a matter worth procrastinating or perseverating over very slowly until the next time the skeleton didn't sit down why should it point with all of its bones at the rest of everything at the conclusion of the party between the edge of the desert and the empty pool next to the overturned barbecue atop a vomited pile of dried charcoal it comes it comes to end sometimes and then it starts over unrecognizable at first and the next time until it's too late for the mirror and a part of nothing and a part of something was a matter worth was the matter with worth and value for pornographic dyads lubricated contractions slathered with a burning wind the wind that wraps the drooping shaft the posture mispronouncing gestures for no one for everybody and we leave it at until they bring up again tomorrow making thicker lenses and thinner solutions deciphering codes and destroying connections
she had gotten her head stuck in the banister and rolled her eyes back and forth she whispered the words, "dishwasher staggering" as she looked down at the carpet and where it ended and the tile began remembering how it felt when she stepped there and her left foot took that sharp object objects sharper now then whatever she had almost forgotten her face her features her eyes the way she lifted her eyes and then the way she lowered them away from her until she had gotten her head stuck mistakes and useless progress and disasters had been made intentionally when she could walk around things before they disappeared swallowed by the beige blankness of what lingered beyond the fence harsh borders melting into the glass a mirror for avoidance the kind that never worked when pots and pans clamored for you attention at the bottom of your worth.
- Max Stoltenberg
