Glass

They too had planned for la dolce vita
waiting for the 7:10 on Track #5 to whisk them away -
away from the boredom
the open-ended gestures
the semicolons -
only to be returned
side shows up their sleeves
prestidigitators all
the towers tolling another wishing hour
overwriting the previous 744,600.

A dog-eared copy of Cliff Notes holds the key
to this rat's nest of bottlenecked Geri-Chairs and Hoyer Lifts
questions dangling
vacant expressions captured mid-void.

You too are among the chosen
among those advancing to the finals
confused
indifferent to the cut of cloth
the secrets of Icarus dumbed-down
back pockets bulging with respites.

Your fingers tickle the ivories.

You listen for the sound of your parents.
You walk in the footsteps of your parents.
You have become your parents.

There is no cab awaiting your departure.
No bell ending the round.
The season has changed
the community room repainted and recarpeted
for incoming Freshmen
ill-formed products of texting
truncated, housebroken
laden with knock-offs, gloomier than Milton
idols of the kings and queens of darkness.

You should have asked for a doggie bag.
They should have asked for a doggie bag.
We all should have asked for a doggie bag.

Too late.

Review the script before the table-read.
Before the run-through.
Try to nail it this time.

Scene 1:

The iron gates open to Philip Glass's Metamorphosis.
A unknown figure autographs the bibs of those who ask.

From One Hour Photo

We spent off-days playing hide-and-seek
and kept secrets in seed catalogs, dog-eared and crusted.

A wobbly Victrola bounced Hallelujah, I'm A Bum
off the two-families.

Every Friday night at ten, flat-footed palookas
bloodied each other for pocket change

on a snowy round-screened Stromberg-Carlson.
Strangers came and went

some promenading through the grape arbor
and into the amusement park

where a troll squirreled-away recyclables.
The music of the midway swept us into other rooms.

We wandered through berry patches
taking care not to disturb the picnickers.

Someone suffered a memory lapse
and appeared in Who's Who.

Leaves turned inside out and were bagged
by majorettes who popped up from sidewalk cracks

insinuating themselves into our dreams.
The changing of the guard didn't.

We worried that it was akin to nothing.
And it was, or wasn't, I'm not sure.

Blindsided

He never ever saw it coming at all.
          - Regina Spektor

You imagine crying spells
in front of a muted TV
a pizza man at the door
several small animals underfoot.
There are two sets of books
in every room.
A cobwebbed chifforobe in the basement.

Then the scene shifts:

a man and a woman are driving along a coastal road
in a black convertible.
There is a newness to the sky
and to them.
They laugh through the curves.
Of course, anyone can play the extra.

Meanwhile, the siding continues to fade.
The foundation crumbles.
A toehold is lost.

And here they are again
sitting in a car
in a parking lot
surrounded by blue
and the faint wail of the lead singer from inside the bar.
It's cold.
Their bodies have become short stories.

Ballet dancers pirouette on a stage in the middle of a dream.
Someone enters from stage left with a picnic basket
a baguette and a bottle of Merlot.
The matinee is about to begin.
All eyes are on the principal dancer
who later will spend hours on the phone.
The potted plants have shrunk away.
There's half a birthday cake
in the middle of a faded mahogany table
a gravy boat
a violated cookie jar.

In the final scene
kids play in the backyard
of a house on the shore.
There's a deck with a high-foreheaded man
sitting at a small glass-topped table.
A tall woman has just gone inside through a sliding screen door.
There are elements of crossword puzzles here.
And short-term investments.
A laptop would do well.

Given the Number of Items on My Plate

I prefer short novels, better yet, novellas
something longer than a short story but shorter
than one of those sweeping Russian doorstops
so chock-full of characters with unpronounceable names
I fall asleep with the reading light on,
the book spread-eagled across my chest.

But not too short.
I want something I can sink my teeth into
something with a money-back guarantee
should the escape fail to span a three-day weekend
something that'll survive the bullet train trip to the city and back
something I can bookmark.

A few well-developed characters will do,
characters who won't mind waiting while I put the kids to bed
perhaps a pleasant landscape and some animals
including a yellow Lab
but above all some space to stretch out in with room to spare
between once upon and ever after.

Scholar of the Dark  by Gina Litherland

Promiscuous Trappings

Increasingly they elbow their way in
along with parents and siblings
surrogate companions

travelers from distant lands dispatched as extras
some well-versed in fractals
others with experience as sommeliers.

Processionals too have a way
of creeping into our papers and musings
as well as scribbles from exes

who linger with the tenacity of wolves
posting promises and threats -
stipulations laced with extensive footnotes.

We continue to fret the circumstance
that brought us here -
the sidelong glance, the misstep, the misspoken word or two -

and the well-wishers
always the well-wishers
laden with fatuous tales of adventure and romance

the inconsequence of half-lives
trudging willy-nilly
through a snowy, timeworn landscape.

Intaglio

Your moment awaits in the wings
drenched in the solitude of nights
spent with the covers pulled up to your chin
the curtains in your room
choreographing the key to the question
you posted on Facebook.
Did you do it in jest as they’ve suggested?
As a gesture perhaps against the disarray?
Against the confusion?
You have continued to ignore the road
beneath your window
the one that weaves through violins
studded with the fingernails of minions -
the minions tattooed in relief
on your right shoulder.
You are out of practice, you know.
The knock at the door requests a refund.
The back door has been nailed shut.
Step up to the plate.
Resume your memoirs with the contents
of the certified letter returned unopened.
Nightly on the screened-in porch
you rearrange photographs of ne’er-do-wells
as familiar to you as the siblings you don’t have.
You had hoped your cosmetologist would reveal
the answer to the puzzle that sideswiped you
in the condiment aisle at Hannaford.
This too has eluded you.
How often will you prime the numbers of forgiveness?
How often will you exchange your face for a newer model?
You have been blackballed and blacklisted and blindsided
and now you find that your knees are giving way.

Wichita

The name Wichita could happen to any of us:
feet up, innocently cooling our heels,

waiting for the curtain call.
Your high school sweetheart arrives on a dustjacket

to brew tea far from night’s tragedies
where eyes reach out from sunken sockets

like the hands in your mirror at three AM.
You draw a blank on the name of the actor

whose performance sent you to Google.
There are too many unknowns in this room.

Inking in the details won’t help much either.

Extrication

          on Harry Houdini's 137th birthday

He began reading books about the Great Houdini
pausing at photographs of handcuffs and leg irons.

He spent hours with newspaper clippings
of the Chinese Water Torture Cell

and made dozens of drawings
of intricate trapdoor mechanisms

carefully labeling each in the upper right corner.
It mattered little that he lacked the stage presence

or showmanship. He knew what he had to do.
It would take time, but it was all there

in the notebooks and journals of Erik Weisz
the boy - and this too he believed

having read it somewhere - who, while standing on his head,
could pick up needles with his eyelashes.

The Great Houdini

You'd Think the Facade Would Have Been Repainted by Now

We spent the morning fashioning earthenware vessels.
Putting away the groceries, we found raw data
sprinkled with quotidian delights and chuckled
over the cantankerousness of the corner grocer.
In times like these serious types make doughnut runs
which always seem to help.
Nonplussed, we are borne aloft.
Beneath us, gandy dancers skitter about
the aqueduct filling with memories of war lords singing.

The Undoing of the Do-It-Yourselfer

Bespectacled crusaders against the weatherbeaten
against the inevitability of decline
the insistence of wear and tear, of demise, of oxidation
eschewing orange-aproned yeasayers
trafficking the intricacies of replacing a washer
in a drippy kitchen faucet, running numbers
on fixer-uppers with free tickets to after-hour haunts
where sequined curtains part for whisperers
filling in the blanks. You will be applauded
by the graffiti-stained, heralded by street corner profiteers
and by all members of the extended familia
your boats moored in the marina at La Mancha.
There is nothing left of the landscape
nothing left of the ideas that ballooned
above the congregation - the congregation that now
at a drop in the Dow scalps tickets
to sit at the feat of the next double header.
If you can drive a nail, fine; if not, no problema.
Browse YouTube, punch in your query
and be buried in multi-lingual, detailed instructions
for rehabbing your backyard gazebo for those -
and isn't that just about every one of us? -
who in a weakened weekend moment would pounce
on the trifolded specs of the Gates of Hell
where, when summer begins to unravel -
as it most surely will - we will assemble, reassured
that in these dark days of terror-ists and global warnings
every do-it-yourselfer will score a bogey
in view of no less than 10 neighbors
who moonlight as anonymous purveyors of blogspeak.

Has spring sprung?

Earlier today in the food court
a know-it-all handed out sentences
waxing philosophic
for innuendos in tight jeans
twitterers and power walkers
rubbernecking.
I tried to follow the topographic map
from You are here!
but the Buds
reaching down into Stella Adlers
in the groves of academe
hacked my attention.
The air was fresh and free of regrets.
Egrets dotted grassy knolls.
Strollers jostled for changing stations.
It took me a while
to find an unoccupied portal
but eventually one popped up
to a show of hands
and escorted me to the parking lot
where an epauletted attendant
practiced umlauts.
The sun was fanciful
filled with expectation and delight.
As it should be, yes?


March 21, 2011 Berne, NY



But Did You Think It Was Not Over?

Toggle between the ellipses and you'll see
that everything worth writing
has not been written
despite the folds of enlightenment
curling the ends of the paper in your hand
fingertips etched with the smudge of ink.
Blame it if you must
on the carbon fiber centerpiece
you convinced yourself
you couldn’t live without
but don't be surprised
when the flooring gives way.
Yes, far too much preening is televised
but can you blame them
for going where the money is?
Just where is one supposed to stand?
Lose the trepidation.
Get off your high horse.
Slip out of work early tomorrow.
Take the R Train to the end of the line.
You’ll find volumes there
among the sandcastles and storefronts
describing in minute detail what happens
when the words being keyed
lose their ability to transport the reader
into a living breathing pack mule
and your world slips out the door.

Too Late to Go Over Your Words

The wind chimes tried to warn you
but you were too busy being seduced
by the pitter-patter of rain
reminding you of the tin roof
on the tool shed
behind your grandmother’s house
where one summer
you tried to read all the books
in your grandfather’s library.
Your achievement fell short
but was impressive enough
for those gathered ‘round the shortwave.
Later you dialed her number
and wowed her with some makeshift whatnot.
That moment will resurface.
Perhaps the misspellings
or the absence of transitionals
will suffice to identify you
as the author who tried to follow
the path to heaven. Doubtless
your meaning will again be misconstrued
taken out back by two burly bouncers.
It’s nothing personal.

With Fingers Curled ‘Round

Sometimes we find it in a half-empty cup of coffee
or in the faint strains of an aria
drifting through a curtained window
or in the backward glance of an untied shoe.
We all crave it
yet for some small strangeness
we shy away from it
seldom discuss it
especially during dinner
when the UPS truck makes its tiresome rounds
amidst the clockwise passing of rolls
and the smattering of knives and forks
engaged in the usual.
Is it ever too late to play the lottery of a lifetime?
To ponder the waffling of resolutions
scribbled with crayon in the final hour?
A voice on the answering machine
is trying to tell us something
but we ignore it
skip over it
busying ourselves instead with vacancies
shuffling the cards for one last go-around.
Why do we insist on waiting
until the books are long overdue
or worse lost?
Why are we afraid to retrace our steps
arms filled with might-have-beens?
Can you imagine life
without the convenience of a cough?
The comfort of a shadow?
Without fingers curled 'round the familiar?

Topspin

It’s the topspin that’s troublesome
the way the ball hits the net then spikes upward
suspended momentarily
as if awaiting divine intervention
some celestial force
the force Byzantine monks prayed for
to guide their trembling hands
in setting down the words of the Father
before it drops to one side
an intertidal moment
that moment between the high and low tides
when the water recedes
and the flotsam and jetsam
are rudely revealed to weekend
hand-holding beachcombers
who have pined for this getaway
since their last three-day weekend
that they may be rejuvenated sufficiently
to re-center their life
which has been sorely wobbled of late
by the hits of devaluation and decline
and again accept and ride the flux
that has become the everyday
of their existence
the resignation spinned into enlightenment;
this dropping of the ball
to one side of the net
this seemingly innocuous randomness
as powerful really as the call of a line judge
in awarding the point, prompting one
to collect one’s baggage at the turnstile
assume the role of weary traveler
the journey’s detritus highlighting crow’s feet
and face the blur of cabs curbside
each driver festooned with the barnacles
of a life spent underwater
pearls dribbling from their mouths
a half-eaten ham and swiss
moldering on the passenger’s seat
accusatory in its resemblance
of a vinyl mockup by Oldenburg
for those who have left their hearts in San Francisco
and sought renewal
among the high peaks of the Adirondacks
the ADK or ADKs sticker
broadcasting their achievement
from the driver’s side back window
to other motorists fighting
the Friday night retreat northward
to Clifton Park, Saratoga Springs,
Glens Falls, and beyond
their state service security badges
dripping from their rear-view mirrors.

Giant BLT  by Claes Oldenburg

Furniture Music

Why choose to be separate from the essential?
          - Anne Carson

I thought I saw Catherine Deneuve
a few minutes ago
in a sweater buttoned almost to the neck
but then I remembered
I was in Schenectady New York
rounding a corner
daylight savings 2011
just out of the starting blocks.
I guess I was wrong
but doesn't she hold a chair in philosophy
at some local university
where every Tuesday and Thursday
she sits at the head
of a seminar table and expounds
on the postmodern aspects
of  Winnebagos and wing chairs?
Or am I confusing reality
with the French film The Thieves
in which she plays
a philosophy teacher in Paris
(I don't love women, I love Juliette!)
a classicist, bent on conserving the past?
Regardless, I have a bone to pick with her
and with all semioticians for that matter.
Where are they when we need them
the professional kind
the ones ensconced
in white trapezoidal uniforms
(maybe that's not the right symbol
but they know what I mean)
making us think the inner dome of heaven
had just crashed onto Mars?
Besides, there's too much talk these days
too much talk-talk if you will
about contrapuntal blips
and the upcoming installation
being blogged to death
as the inter-ocular event of the hour
featuring a redhead
in a light green Ford Pacer
license plate S-A-M-E-2-U.
I was in the condiment aisle
checking out a few pinch shoppers
when the news broke.
The midday mist was soupy
so soupy in fact
I could hardly make out the labels.
Should I have rewound the tape?
I think not.
The store manager -
I knew he was the store manager
because he had a photo ID
pinned to his shirt
with the name
Bill Jobs followed by
Store Manager - was blurbing
about his Apple iPad
with Dvorak layout
the key pattern
based upon letter frequencies
introduced in the 1930s
by some efficiency expert
in Seattle Washington
to go head-to-head
with the more popular
and ubiquitous
QWERTY system.
(I hunt and peck
with four fingers and thumb
so the question
of  Dvorak or QWERTY
is pretty much moot
though I am a fan
of  Symphony No. 9
From the New World
aka New World Symphony
although we're probably
talking about a different
Dvorak here.)
Anyway, he - the store manager -
was googling
Arvo Part
the Estonian composer
whose tintinabuli style
based upon mystical experiences
with chant
has given us mesmerizing
arpeggiated pieces
which as I mentioned to a friend
in Bruegger's the other day
would dovetail nicely
with Philip Groning's 2005 film
Into Great Silence
a look at the Carthusian monks
in the French Alps.
I loved every one of its
169 minutes
filled with hooded monks
and snow-capped peaks
after which
a few friends and I
went to a Japanese restaurant
where I ordered sushi
wondering
whether sushi
ever appears
on the Carthusian's  menu.
I decided it's flown in
for special occasions
which injected images
of flying fish
into my cortex
so that I began browsing
flying fish artist
and came up with
J. Vincent Scarpace
whose name triggered
memories
of Chicago, Al Capone,
Tommy Guns, speakeasies,
The Untouchables
(the 1959 TV series with Robert Stack
as Elliot Ness NOT the 1987 film
with Kevin look at me Costner)
St. Valentine's Day,
and a young Al Pacino
but settled ultimately
on artwork
by a schizophrenic patient
displayed in my intro psych text.
I switched majors from English
to Psych in my junior year
and helped one of my psych professors
who was finishing his Ph.D.
open his pool that spring.
His wife served us lunch poolside
in a black one piece
launching me into a fantasy
about psych majors
and faculty wives
no doubt fueled by the release
that year of The Graduate
starring a very young Dustin Hoffman
as Benjamin opposite Katharine Ross
who went on to become a Stepford wife.
In the film, Benjamin's father's friend,
Mr. McGuire, gives Benjamin
one word of advice
plastics
a myopic suggestion
vis-a-vis the hindsight
of today's landfill sprawl.
Last week
I saw Last Chance Harvey
with Emma Thompson
that charming atheist
who likes to remind us
that she feels Scottish
and a 70-something Dustin Hoffman
still cool
still plying the Method
prompting me to browse YouTube
to replay James Lipton's
2006 interview with Hoffman
the 200th guest to appear
on Inside the Actors Studio
in what was
serendipitously
the 12th episode of the 12th season.
I guess Anne Carson's right
when she says
You only learn things when you jump in.

Last Chance Harvey (2008)

Wine Gnats

A bottle of kee-yan-tee
(I love Hannibal Lecter’s inflection
to knees-glued-together
Agent Starling
in my desert island favorite
Silence of the Lambs)
from the neighborhood
wine store to go
with the angel hair
and jar sauce
and I’m thinking about
the wine gnats
hovering over the bag of Ripple
being sampled by Bukowski's
alter ego Henry Chinaski
played by Matt Dillon
in Factotum
a three-star on IFC
that made me rethink
my criteria for evaluating films.
But it was two AM I tell myself -
the spin doctor has entered
the building, oh joy -
which didn’t stop me
from drawing a bath
with Ashbery
and stemmed glass
to comb the beach
for a peach of a word
to jumpstart my pencil
amidst the steam.
It usually works
well enough to transport
the wrinkled yellow pad
to the keyboard
for transcription
with editing
and commentary
(Did I write that?).
For 25 years I’ve slept
on a futon
and feel compelled to read
a paragraph
a line
a word
before clicking off the bulb.
There are mornings
when the light smiles
into the apartment
and my toys beckon
and prying to disembark
is next to impossible.
I putter
turning green
at the thought of friends
who have crossed over
into the twilight zone
of retirement
that for one or more
of the assembled reasons
as well as those
which for whatever reason
remain undisclosed
I convince myself I cannot do
just yet.
On those days
all roads lead to work.
There are no detours.
No walking away.
No hugging the far wall
bordering the lawn
before making a mad dash
for the gate.
No vehicle
idling in the alley
waiting
to take me
(and companion)
to the airport
for that long-awaited trip
abroad.

Price Check on Register #5

Bare midriffs parade the latest reincarnation of Neverland
matching wits with flecks of cream
vying for the morning coffee’s surface tension.
Little Bo Peep is jailed for public lewdness.
Even my somersaults go unheralded.
Across the street, flags of speculation are hoisted
against the moon at its jovialest.
It’s likely the birds too have caught the mail-order bug
their flapping loud enough to derail a commuter train
onto the front lawn flattening a pink flamingo.
An old man stops to clean his bygone eyes on a park bench
where permutations of parking meters
blind indifferent well-wishers.
Aisle 5 of course is still the hands-down favorite
with its multicolored fruit loops
bracketed by canned juices and breakfast drinks.
The driver of the hit-and-run shopping cart remains at-large
but the checkout girl has wrapped my attention
around her softly woven thigh and quietly led me to safety.

A Breakdown of Significant Magnitude

Every now and again the room had to be rehung.
We slipped back into dreams possibly in deference.
The phone rang.
No one was there.
A news anchor interviewed interlopers on TV.
A pizza arrived.
Someone went grocery shopping.
Someone overstayed his welcome
and had to be pried away under watchful eyes
leading to a breakdown of significant magnitude.

Putting Your Affairs in Order

You still see the overturned car in the breakdown lane,
hear the sweet sound of the clothesline spanning the backyard
from the upper and lower flats of the two-family

where the peeling paint effected a sort of medieval mural
whose intricate cryptograms
you documented with a toothbrush.

The pages of your biography
appear in a snow globe on a piano in a doilied parlor
where a tabby paws her way through a dream.

The two small boys huddled in a stairwell
paging through pictures of monsters in Life
offered to edit your musings

but you were too busy with stoop-ball
and with tomatoes pilfered from your neighbor's garden.
Later you were awakened

by crows cawing in a cornfield
and by a greengrocer pleading for an extension
which would never happen

because of a news anchor's special report
on deadbeat dads
who call in for take-out and disappear.

The music teacher down the block
is offering cello lessons at half price.
How many times did you talk about cello lessons?

How many times did you finetune the lawn mower
threatening  a journey
to the seven wonders of the neighborhood?

The fortunes in fortune-cookies
leave you breathless and eager to catalog their hidden meanings.
You spend hours googling Oreos.

Your friends were as surprised as you were
when you closed the blinds to your apartment
and took up residence in a cemetery, where daily,

between rounds of stripping wax at the local elementary school
you watch others place flowers
on what you believe to be the graves of little-known castrati.

On the Proper Use of Tick Sheets

Walking the fast lane with portfolio
I toy with the idea of gambling my voice
hoarse at the moment.

The turkey club hit the spot.
I'm well aware that admission is restricted to a select few
but I'll try again later anyway thank you.

A catamaran is the way to go
losing yourself in its wake as you skim a surface
as taut as the Half & Half's

left on the stoop without a worry in the world
by a starchy driver in his snub-nosed truck
addressing the route

with black bowtie, spit-shined shoes, and time to spare,
greeting everyone, even those who on this frosty morning
have fallen through the cracks.

Assessing Forgiveness

That woman riffing on a djembe is a treat for deep listeners
and cluster flies
whose haphazard flight patterns
earmark the seasons.
The answering machine will have to go unanswered
until the muffins are removed by forensics.
Runways are overrun with full-figured tattoos
that never seem to get off the ground
despite resolutions
and contractual negotiations.
I too am in a holding pattern.
Regarding the missing photomontage of wunderkind?
Was it striped or stripe-ped?
Take notes; I'll try to consolidate things later.

Our Voyages Endlessly Maiden

The phrase full cast of characters
in an article in Art in America
sends me out of the tub
and into my workroom
for yellow pad and pencil
knocking the wine glass
off the edge
chipping a piece from its base
which I'll need to find
before my daughter arrives
for an overnight and cuts her foot -
a no-no for someone
who goes up on pointe
as part of her daily routine -
a routine that will take her
I fantasize to a performance
for the mute heads
of Easter Island.
I've heard they sign
when no one's looking
commenting on civilization
and its discontents.
Have they seen it all?
Most likely.
Yet they fail to compel us
to rethink our strategies
for repairing the leaky faucets
that continue to plague us -
the leaky faucets
that have become earworms
of no mean insignificance
that we might revisit the silent era
with its mute cityscapes
and exaggerated gestures
captivating audiences
holding them in its grip -
a life not out of balance
scored by Glass
transporting us to a netherworld
where in a New York minute
we'd be able to tweak
all final segments
retrofitting the skin bag
well enough to fling it into
a field of dreams
recasting ourselves as the captains
of our souls
our voyages endlessly maiden.

With Eyes on the Prize

A pair of boomers awaits a delivery of boneless wings.
Severe aluminum ladders stretch skyward.
Drops are busheled and hauled off to presses.
I ask about first editions.
A petting zoo is installed for pets.
Stick figures turn their heads.
An elementary school remnant sticks her head in.
Others have done the same.
Lives depend on it.
We open a steamer trunk for an afternoon of two-step.
The caller is called away.

With New Programmable Reading Lamps

It was a welcomed change, having spent the better part
of a month tracking the migratory patterns
of overdue library books, amassing anecdotes

for a journal article, or better yet, a junket.
We laughed at the proposition
knowing that our colleagues wouldn't be able to resist

the anticlimactic elegance of the main course
which had many going back for seconds ... and thirds
despite the initial apprehension

of those ubiquitous ladies-in-waiting
who, at that moment, were standing in the portico
with faces of clay, black magic markers in hand

admiring their gilt-framed likenesses.
A month ago the images of the patrons' saints
were featured in a juried exhibition

in the newly-renovated arts complex.
Several sold. Come to think of it, selling yourself
would indeed have been fodder

for a sci-fi thriller maybe even a best seller
setting the genre on its elbow. Meanwhile,
the village became an anthill; the villagers, ants.

We could hardly wait to return to our cabin to switch on
the new programmable reading lamps, and reread
the cruise literature of this soon-to-be forgotten voyage.

Worth Every Penny

The CD player only plays what it wants to play.
I'll have to hum my top ten.

You can strum along if you like.
The neighbors, however, frown upon that sort of thing.

Amateurish, I've heard them say.
So be quick about it

and we'll get back to work
restacking remainders

before anyone's the wiser.
It's all a wash, anyway.

Trees shed with nary a whimper.
Geese gaggle overhead.

A stream meanders under a curious sky
depositing the results of an exit poll along the bank.

Apparently, warm milk is only one of many secrets
to a good night's sleep.

Others will be revealed
on the six o'clock news, and again at eleven.

But before you fly off the handle to 7-Eleven
with the last telecommuter on earth

can you spare some pocket change for my cello lessons?
You always said music was worth every penny.

Mere Image

Gregorian chants shuttle me to work dovetailing
with the austerity of back roads.

I busy myself with laundry.
My nights fill with remotes.

I’ve removed my shoes to quiet my appearance
mumbling the same lines over and over -

a soap star dressed in seventeenth-century.
My image fails in the bathroom mirror.

My ophthalmologist ever the optimist prescribes glasses
but the facts remain a magic square.

I’ve a mind to return them for a full refund
though the salesperson who works on commission

was very helpful going on at great lengths
about the images mirrors have held for centuries

detailing the perspective needed to capture
the true vanishing point.

Soup to Nuts

I’m folding words into packets for open source monologues
after this morning’s riveting performance at the diner.
The add-ons for omelets were over the top.
Even the Harleys curbside spelled amusement.
If things continue at this pace there’s no telling
where we’ll end up. Of course, anyone can flip the switch
and shut it down, but there’s something that seems
to goad us - most of us anyway - to hang on
for the full catastrophe. There are far too many crashes
littering the landscape, pining for placards touting B&Bs.
He said soup to nuts then split for a convenience mart.

Aleutians

An aproned woman hands me a piece
of chocolate cake on a paper plate.

The plate bends under the weight.
The woman returns to mowing the lawn.

Women on riding mowers begin populating my dreams.
The woman appears as my sixth grade teacher.

She locates the Aleutians on a wobbly globe.
I draw a map of the islands in the frosting

as her pale shoulders return to the chalkboard.

Mapping the Rest of the Journey

You’ll notice it in your rearview mirror
at the bus stop, umbrella in hand.
The day will turn sunny, and later
it will promenade down a side street,
packages under its arms.
Your back seat will become littered
with gum and candy wrappers.
It will bark at you though the gray speaker
hanging off your window, steal you
to a different world without a change of clothes.
It waits for you now in the wings
its wooden leg mapping the rest of the journey.

Openings

The impastos and gouaches in the small gallery
on the third floor, the long-limbed bronzes
crowding the poorly lit hallways, the after-hour
departures rehung as an homage to the lives
of the long coats and wide brims that filled
the spaces between the shows and now daily wait
for the commuter train and the safety of the suburbs
are not unlike the visitors who drift through,
stopping occasionally for a closer look
at the work of the brush or painting knife,
the blending of color, the play of light and dark,
scribbling their lives, page after page,
revision upon revision, against the collage
of empty limbs in the courtyard,

moving to the rhythm of the wind

amid the color fields of seasons
with their unmet promises, their table settings,
their half-filled water glasses.


La Foret  by Alberto Giacometti