LOGICS OF NUMB

Swallowing post-nasal drainage occupied the territories of most minds.  Stacks of empty notebooks under a blanket of lint a shroud of some sort fallen into a category or system of categories of sorts.  Let alone interruptions all alone with too much sorting distracting from a current that is stopped up by stacks of empty notebooks.  Brutal beasts of wisdom deceiving beginners with false starts and traps on treadmills surrounded by reflective hostility.  


Emptiness is circumvented by sentences that keep advancing towards the same old periods of black holes that loop back and forth between volumes of the lost.  Consecutive sentences restarted and revised cut and pasted consecutive concurrent sentences begin again with an accumulation of the ingredients of understanding laced with the roots of decay a hereditary grammar dubiously proceeding and receding occluded with detail the details that clings to socks and their fibers of missteps.  Nor nor that which implies and invests nor divests paper colored blank vocabulary disliked and ostracized.


Nor the mouse looking through the page worn by erasure nor the absence of insects replaced by the presence of slugs  holding the buttons down in failed attempts to close into privacy viewing setup menus searching for more channels where viruses spread propositional waste.  The mouse nor the slugs provide enough weight nor open measures to rest the outstretched out on a limb nor nor that which implies and invests nor divests paper colored blank vocabulary disliked and ostracized.  


Anorexic words retching over an abyss miniaturized into a fun-sized psychosis up and away through another discipline put in its place nor the corner nor center stage tumbling into the back row exhausted in the lobby unable to find the next showing late but will be excused to appear before the next tribunal's memo inciting another run through yet another run through.  Nor next nor last.  


An old couple that had died within a couple of days a couple of minutes of each other when they were younger before they first met on and off separating reuniting and separating their separate ways on and off nor replaced by the presence of slugs holding the buttons down in failed attempts to find their dream home only a dream only a home only a room in someone else's home in someone else's mind occupied with swallowing post-nasal drainage nor eating loaves of white bread with nothing on any slice whatsoever pinching to wake up not waking up pinching to wake up.  


An old couple that had died within a couple of days a couple of minutes of each other when they were younger is fast-forwarded to their last couple of days last couple of minutes rewound to before they met and lived on and off with each other dying within a couple of days a couple of minutes of each other they are still dead.  End tables surround stacks of empty notebooks devoid of the complete and filled with forgetfulness.  Driving toward mountains that never get any closer based on an adaptation from an unoriginal source denied by neighbors diagonally across from unrequited reciprocation.  Nor suppressing retaliation nor admitting nor admitting nor nor also nor nor.


Efforts at clarity have been meticulously knitted into the mesh wrinkled by the on and off which has evolved into the sporadic off and on and edited out by sentences gummed up on parallel treadmills in more locations unzipping flies on beaches nor beaches nor lakes concluding in one individual standing in the desert out on a limb outstretched for a job description adding lines and buffering the family from their presence replaced by the presence of slugs holding the buttons down in failed attempts concluding in one individual standing alongside others in the desert out on a limb rubbing elbows outstretched for job descriptions adding lines repaginating to the next sheet nor the mouse looking through the page worn by erasure adjacent to sentences advancing towards the same old periods of black holes that loop back and forth between volumes of the lost.




- Max Stoltenberg 

OBJECTS

Some or more or less than some were speaking in general about topics of disinterest to others and themselves on ever increasing occasions during random periods of periods red-faced with seeing red to hide their crimes.  Cigar smoke covers their gonads networking getting to know the right people so right in the head head for their gonads.  

Brain Damaged Chapter from the "Gonadology"

Watch your flight is coming in for a crash landing
Insuring premium quality blends of organs
For the mixing
Insuring upping premiums
Pumping gas for the flames
Shaking legs together
Can't fold that way
People weren't meant to bend that way
Those ways
These ways
Suppose just suppose
For now for later
Way later no way
Those ways
People weren't meant to bend that way
Highways
Even though they try to
Suppose just suppose
What is it supposed to?
Run to away from
Running out of runway
Axioms no longer come out 
Dry empty fountain
Extra brittle for the escaping passengers
To scrape their external and internal worlds on
As they give the impression of sliding to safety
Suppose just suppose
People weren't meant to bend that way
Even though they try to
It's bastards all the way up
Run to away from
Eyes on the tarmac

Fetch a taxi fetch a bone hills of bones setting the scene scenery decrepit with turning their backs.  Fetch a taxi fetch a drawing knuckles with paper cuts in the hats without rabbits today tomorrow yesterday deleted with the next paragraph's toilet tissue.  Didn't do enough reps losing speed acceleration from fetching a taxi a bone a bicycle a bimonthly expedition away from providing the same old services just suppose the cycles never halt never break down even with all those stomach contents table of contents just suppose can't dissolve it away even this formic acid trip only shrinking losing speed losing categories squeezing in more categories smaller units and sub-units and sub-sub-units can't decide to go in or come out of the last dream nightmare neither they are all just chasing after people tall people dark people who never turn around even for a second just suppose just suppose never mind never turn around can't turn this thing around.  Fetch a taxi fetch a bone catch a plane catch a cold get over it to catch it again.

Quelk: Are we ever going to taxi toward the runway?  Where are we at in the order now?
Forlapse: #17, I think.
Twimglormo: 19 actually.
Quelk: Crap.
Forlapse: 19?  Did I nod off at some point?  Did anyone notice?
Quelk: I didn't notice.
Bukow: You looked like you might have slipped away there twice.
Twimglormo: Did anyone ask for your opinion?  This is a private conversation.  If we want to drag you into this we'll give the say so.
Bukow: Take it easy.  Just trying to be helpful.
Forlapse: They don't know what I look like when I come to sufficiently and sufficiently for me can take most of the day or half a week sometimes depending on how much I've been drinking.
Bukow: The three of you are recent acquaintances and haven't fulfilled the criteria for a private conversation.
Twimglormo: Someone is paying way too much attention to something that is not their business.  
Bukow: Business.  You keep changing the expectations trying to exclude me you've been working on your latest project of downsizing the carpool one less way of seeing the world at a time.  I get up 15 minutes earlier every morning so I can still catch up to those who brag about moving on so well with their gene pool expelling its noxious gases while I convince myself I'm getting used to its effects as my eyes open less and less getting up earlier and earlier into the past bulldozing into before needing a way to work the wrecking balls knock in walls of composure as better times crumble.
Forlapse: I should observe myself coming to in front of the mirror and see what I really look like.
Quelk: How will you tell especially during weeks when you've been drinking more than usual.
Bukow: When is there a usual?  When is there not a usual?  I think we all nod off between each other's lines.  Between applications between open tabs between thoughts between associations associations hooked along protocols of associations.  Nothing to make note of here.  Move along.  Nothing to make note of here.  Cloud shaped like a frozen ear frozen in a script adapted from a protocol of associations.  Tag you're it.  Tag I'm it.  Tag we're it.


Max Stoltenberg

SHOPPING CART

Stay with the shopping cart, stay with us
Don't get caught up, don't get lost
In the sea of cereal and juice
Stop shaking the cart, stop driving us nuts
Don't break the eggs or flatten the bread
In the forest of artificial flower arrangements
Space of a day a day of space
Sectioned into tiny eyes of broken glass
In the forest of artificial flower arrangements
They stand there they move only briefly
Those mouths their mouths
Maybe
Someone's mouths
Has to belong to 
The voice a source of noise
Damned grating amusements


"What is that you're wearing?"
"Just threw it on."
"Some would say it certainly looks that way."
"And what would others say?"
"I can't speak for others."
"You only speak for some?"
"Yes, I guess I do.  In fact I've taken it upon myself."
"And how is that working out for you?"
"Don't very much like that question."
"Neither do I as a matter of fact."


Those mouths their mouths
Maybe
Someone's mouths
Has to belong to 
The voice a source of noise
Damned grating amusements


"Like expecting a stranger to start a knock knock joke."
"That very thought entered my mind."
"Just now?  Remarkable."
"No, just the other day last week or last month actually."
"The vest I used to wear when I played in a tragedy with a woman written as a figure of it'll come to me in a minute.  It's funny or tragic how we think we can estimate how long it will take for us to recall something that wants to stay hidden or think we'll hold onto something or someone who we are forgetting as we speak about them."
"You were in a tragedy?  Was it a real relationship or a role you played in a real relationship or a staged relationship you gave your all to make real imagining it to be real with all of your creative imagination?  I couldn't imagine being able to do that or could I?"
"Relationships are a lot of work especially working relationships that turn into relationships then the work becomes more complicated and intensive.  Makes fleshy balloons of you and me and them it either inflates us or deflates us inflating and deflating makes little holes leaks leaking all those harmonies and looks that can never be recreated escaping with claims of holding onto them each word forming white subtitles over winter scenes."
"Is that something you just made up now on this spot or a line from one of the tragedies you got yourself into?"
"Fuck off."
"I thought I saw some larger flatscreens in the next aisle."


In the forest of artificial flower arrangements
Space of a day a day of space
Sectioned into tiny eyes of broken glass
In the forest of artificial flower arrangements

Temper temper easy with that punchbowl.  Awkward sentences forced out to keep back facial gestures that make no sense anymore.  Temper temper easy with that punchbowl.  What a character what characters stupendous stupidity put together for displays of affection withheld searching domains tags for vaginas with just the right pubic topiaries atop the entrance virtually remote enough she is remote enough what about what about these fingers interrupt those fingers interrupt the next letter for another search topiaries atop allergies and curtain calls.



In the forest of artificial flower arrangements

Space of a day a day of space

Sectioned into tiny eyes of broken glass

In the forest of artificial flower arrangements

- Max Stoltenberg

TIN FOIL ORB

Melted chocolate melted to the inside of tin foil silver diaper of the universe inserted into the mouth for consumption points sharp points pointed leaving the tiniest cuts on lips.  Cuts opening into spaces for pausing in pain continue over the broken wooden fence away from neighborhoods of strangers strange faces without eyes crowned only in brows furrowed with their melted chocolate melted to the inside of tin foil silver diaper of the universe inserted into the mouth for consumption points sharp points pointed leaving the tiniest cuts on lips.


Red lips red dots circle the sockets nights of bottles and glasses into can they be called conversations what can they be called calling for who who is calling not calling no one calling forgetting names names fading from lack of mention distanced by lack and floods and quakes quaking short legs folding waving goodbye.  Goodbye.


Thighs spreading between storm clouds closing around the Sun hidden until it is time to burn more holes in opportunities already filled by others charming with wrappings so shiny glittering around melted chocolate melted to the inside of tin foil silver diaper of the universe inserted into the mouth for consumption points sharp points pointed leaving the tiniest cuts on lips opening onto spaces too narrow for kissing too narrow for contemplating too narrow for the smell of lip balm rather wait for the sting to fade fading names fading from lack of mention distanced by lack and floods and quakes quaking short legs folding waving goodbye.  Goodbye.


Tin foil orb hiding between the impressions put there by all the movements between displacements and the thickening and softening and thickening of the melted chocolate inside this tin foil planet.  Cutting the rim of all the ears that once placed themselves to the surface for a listen once a listen.  Tin foil orb planet hiding between the impressions put there by all the movements between displacements and the thickening and softening and thickening of the melted chocolate inside this tin foil planet.  Earlier impressions only theorized about earlier impressions cut red lips pain cut rims of ears draped with hair tangled blown by winds between displacements from first impressions smiles swallowed by the carelessness lying at the bottom of the ocean fading into the deepest dark too dark for names fading names fading from lack of mention distanced by lack and floods and quakes quaking short legs folding waving goodbye.  Goodbye.




- Max Stoltenberg

IRREFRAGABLE

Dented splintered scraped fractured menagerie of contact.  It's all sports to all looking and around it goes where it stops pretensions pretend not to know.  All knowing ignorance indifferent to needles injecting brokenness healed for more invasive language games.  It's all sports to all looking and around it goes where it stops pretensions pretend not to know.  


Farmer falling from the plane during a bathroom break what a breakthrough what a breakthrough effervescent with mountains down below coming up eventually no longer with food but with prisons and other plots to die in pieces unconnectable pieces.  Cloud highlights and plateau split ends endings split and divided irrevocably playing an endless concerto for strings with their two themes complementary for the downward spiral that always finds another helix underneath the bleachers where it's all sports to all looking and around it goes where it stops pretensions pretend not to know.  Fade and stain the aspens the flooring airplane toilet flushing as it continues above and away from the plummeting protagonist.  Heading for no footing in the desert escaping into the trapdoor ceiling glass room glass cell see through cells working together and set apart into producing more transparent information gathered by more clauses harvested in the next crop of electronic addresses.


Water and wear focus worn by sadness water damaged neurons transmitting messages interwoven with formulas repeat for the next hit another hit slapped with the latest penalty for not purchasing this or that.  This contradiction flicked off the monkey's stomach lands in the mouth of those in attendance passing by after repeating it repeats on stomachs passing by the cardboard under engines bleeding to death searching for transfusions in the 8th chapter of the book left in the back of the abandoned convertible.  A pair of hands a pair of eyes (correction: only one eye the other with a patch) examine the book to find the last chapters missing.  Half of Chapter 8 is left and only a page and a half of the 9th unconnectable pieces unconnectable irrefragable gaps grow between the walls of existence pressing against the alternating layers of void and matter outside and outside of that and outside of that.  


Little girl writes in her notebook sitting in her tiny plastic chair on the side patio.  She distracts herself from seeing another moving truck emptying the third or fourth house on her block.  Fingers move the pencil to spell "duck" the duck she has appointed to be excluded from the latest game.  It's all sports for all looking and around it goes where it stops pretensions pretend not to know.  Her appointments and exclusions keep her focused and distracted from the moving trucks lining up down the block as the roof of the latest emptied house is punctured and the emptied house is refilled with the fallen body of the plundered protagonist.  It's all sports for all looking and around it goes where it stops pretensions pretending not to know never stopping around it goes and around it goes watched by all looking into it all it's sports for all.


The pair of hands and pair of eyes (correction: only one eye the other with a patch) put the book back down in the back seat of the abandoned convertible.  The book falls through the gaps to rest on the anthill below where the movement of the ants never stops as it continues to flow pretensions pretending not to know how it goes how it goes filling in those gaps that sprout between the walls of existence pressing against the alternating layers of void and matter and matter and void outside and outside of that and outside of that and outside of that.




- Max Stoltenberg

BASE

Might be what makes might not be was what vainly to have been still trying to be the unmade undone which cannot hide under shrinking skirts disappearing up into the in between kneeling falling out into such a fall out.  Erasing in the midst of it the cranky eraser sticking at times this time as it skips along the asphalt up and down up and down until it comes to a useless rest useless rest.  Up now down later up later down now for the in between missing the dry erase mapping hitting the abreactions colliding with another miss taking another hit on the while away lines gone wringing out what's known what's left filling in the expressions of the same old role stapled to the ground sprinkled with ignored thirst.

Leaking in leaking out with reservations under the Sun behind the clouds clouding the path leading to cracks tarred over in distractions.  Run to run fro running past running into with breath all that breath dislodged from these walls returning less enthusiasm for eyes diverted where is all that breath kept outside teeth grinding under thoughts replaced by blank stares dislodging more air in bronchial rhythm conducted to the expiring waves of the dirge. 

Where did the words go?  Adhering to the urine stained shorts of the dying man walking not dying for too long a time for the up and up of pain coming back lower back coming back to his back as he came back to the tree tilted by the storm and its clouds pasted to his skull thinning to the pattern the routine in between the asteroid and the piece of shit.  Inside the homeless mind fathers wander along black and white streets to nowhere while outside children have given up the search.

Noting who stands in what box and what boxes hold what landmarks of patches of dirt, asphalt, and concrete.  Feet shuffle over them under them knees scraped and banged without reservations based on what was consented to with unvoiced reservations coming back to what boxes hold what dirt, asphalt, and concrete stippled with uneaten banana bread.  Run to and run fro running away has been leaking out of minds and their air conditioners streaming with condensation looking for base.


- Max Stoltenberg

LEAVING RETURNING

The clock needed to be reset.  Needed to stay in step with everything else until a part of it somewhere where their expectations someone's expectations would get rubbed the wrong way somewhat whatever the some of it was or would be.  Their expectations these expectations inflated arms hands fingers to reset the time before the instant glue of slathered and frozen palms could peel off the layer of stuckness that adhered to the body other bodies bodies of others.

Standing with the right thumb scratching the left palm unable to tear off imprints of images dim classrooms upside down young man young woman holding on to the floor the chair the desks voices interrupting memories what memories don't have any no matter what they compile in a pile it gets disposed and forgotten as they are resurrected when something else embarrassing happens these are the only resurrections for watering eyes and dousing the head in the depths treated with miraculous natural elements blurring vision that smoothes over others their silhouettes compiling in a pile until they unleash their sharp instruments for sculpting again what's left behind.

The model retreats and returns and retreats sculptors fill the marble scene a scene for chiseling out another story that goes something like this and it doesn't want to start not yet or maybe ever and yet it starts something like this anyway usually one way in many modes folding the same paper unfolding leaving creases returning to the edges of paper disappearing into spaces.

The young woman not so young call her Amanda when others call her Jennifer even though her name was changed to Lilith from another that lies in that frame that hangs on that wall somewhere in that house on the edge of that forest trimmed away that trimming away she has been trying to stay one step ahead of one foot two feet of hair ahead of nothing left to get back to.  On second thought, don't call her Amanda.  Whatever she leaves whatever she returns to should couldn't care less there is less of her to care more for them to be right less of her nonetheless.

Death where is death's long overdue pinprick?  Death is being administered in smaller dosages numbing and dulling with inadvertent returning to something familar or unfamiliar can't tell the difference anymore.  Typing faster with more what's the word with what with earnestness fuck those earnest payments in full full of it hole in the bucket keeps emptying nonetheless none the less less is this which is less than what it is which is this and will be less all things being more or less less typing at a steady pace pausing for the effects of life and its caffeinated deadlines procrastinating against oblivion.

Returning to pill calls with additional times and additional locations slinking of cables through the dirt of the desert tripping over stepping over getting it straight for lines for pill calls expectations that belong somewhere along these cables that get longer and thicker dividing up space for division for additional times and addition locations addition for subtraction adding memories that clench their teeth to return to the hole of zero with wide curving ellipse multiverse pre-empted by televisions inside televisions all the way back to the beginning of the program to the beginning of the seasion to the beginning of the signal returning to the reruns that return.

What's left is left behind and has left to return for what's left all these streets so rectangular and perpendicular boxing in these lives so circular stepping over cables curled up behind desks those classroom desks those voices echo in every cough every pill call on every street corner every corner of every room of every mind corners of circular rooms spinning in round minds rounded off to the nearest estimate of birth and death leaving returning leaving returning.


- Max Stoltenberg