A Descent into the Mundane

In matters of the heart, logic is out the window.
          - Anon

The late night texts with pics of orphaned silos qua nurseries
strike a chord with those questing after the mundane
after the elements of the everyday
the elements heard but not listened to
seen but ignored.
You try intellectualizing it
but end up at a taproom sipping cosmos.
Chekhov's Uncle Vanya doesn't help
though Cate Blanchett gives you a second wind
and a cheatsheet on the symbolism.
We're all visitors here, anyway, yes?
Passing through, so to speak?
Isn't that part of the agreement?
Part of the understanding?
Retractions? Forget it, crows have eaten the bread crumbs.
When was the last time you saw him/her?
Before or after the pratfall?
And now so much to discover.
So much to rethink.
The train leaving the station, passengers waving
to their delicate lives backstage,
their delicate lives brief and undeniable.

Cate Blanchett  and  Richard Roxburgh  in Uncle Vanya

Fall Collection

Winsome though they are,
it was not enough.
Something kept nudging me
through the time trial,
keeping me attuned to the weather channel
with its reverential esplanades
stretching far and away.
I tried to make-do with the items you left.
No luck. Fragments of then
kept falling out of place.
I imagined Venice instead of the usual,
its narrow convolutions
just what the doctor ordered
forgetting of course my fear of water
which reluctantly I must admit
had a lot to do with it.
That didn't work either,
and I was back at Barnes & Noble
where this flirty little blond
in hot pink jeans
and Louis Vuitton knockoff
got into a musical chairs thing
with a plainclothes IRS guy
and ran the gamut of acceptable insinuations
all of which were carefully documented
by her incidental associate.

Woman XXVI

Her every sentence is a mini-pose
as she fills her eyes with world-weariness
while twirling her vintage-y skirt.
I record her narcissisms,
and can't wait to get into her archive.

Kate Bosworth

Your Next Gelato

          for Bets Smith

The inkman is on his way to the next match(up).
He has proved himself an unreliable witness.
The supporting actors, too, are figments of something,
and that something is filing past as we speak.
(Don't you just love the colors?)
You're trying to imagine how things will turn out.
Me too, I'm in the same boat.
I've gone so far as to pilot the endgame - the real endgame,
not this interim havoc with the clocks stopping and starting,
the menagerie's bedfellows heating up.
I'm sure they find humor in that. We have.
And the spectators, always opportunistic, jostling their way
to the parking lot with its freshly-painted regulations.
You'd think they have a mall to confiscate.
Oh, I almost forgot, have you closed?
Isn't that what it's all about? Closing?
Practicing the senseless script
so you can regurgitate it verbatim on the ride-along
with Miss Goody Two Shoes (size 11)?
There are so many ways it can go - no hints here, yes?
Of course you can speculate
which is what I assume you're doing
(your eyes have that pottery glaze look),
the mountains looming as if they were propped up
by stagehands whose tears are drying in the atelier.
(Incidentally, the atelier is a nice touch.)
Perhaps we should have argued more vehemently
with each other or for a rewrite at least
but you were in the thick of it
your mind racing across the palazzo
filled with images of Morandi's blanched vases (or vahses)
thinking about the next gelato to cross your tongue.

I Cook Rather Than Starve

Do you like to cook?
          - Dating site survey question

It's like listening to yourself
wrapping your arms around your own consciousness
(for the first time, perhaps?)
profiling your soul for a prospective mate
classifying your style
as egoistic or altruistic or both
or neither
the morality of the street
in five easily-mastered lessons
unencumbered by the cheering of the sandlot crowd
as you (or your clone) round second base
on the shadeless, macadamed ball field
carefully adding ballpointed tattoos
to your forearms between innings:
and now ladies and gentlemen
stepping up to the plate: Finnegan Beginagain
sunshine springing eternal
as his beautifully spotless mind
embraces the spectators
backpack filled with life's lessons learned
(a tad light, if you ask me)
the true (north) meaning and why it matters
comfortably ensconced
in a goldleafed pyramid scheme
which, if followed sacrilegiously, is guaranteed
to tag the long ball of happiness far out of the park,
the pearly gates agape
with peace, love, and all that jazz.

Cupid and Psyche by Antonio Canova

It could?

How long (has this been going on)?
          - Paul Carrack (Ace)

Nonchalance. Then trying something else. As mediocre.
OK, exiting after the thunderstorm.
That was a good start.
Capturing the moon in the emptiness between two branches?
That was good, too.
The conversation jump-started with you
bringing up - again - Woodstock.
Why did you keep returning to the image of a church?
There was no church. Ask around. No church.
And the hamlet?
Peaked about 25 years ago. Ask.
By the time we got there, the fences had been trampled,
and they were talking people down from the towers.
Yes, I heard you mention the thunderstorm,
and remember some guy doing acrostics.
The Star Spangled Banner.
The act ending mid-stride with you trying to sort things out.
Forget it, you found a silver (sand) dollar and a fob of sorts.
A dawning? Who knew?
He said it was about a band member
but that's not the way it's been written up.
So what does it look like to you? In retrospect?
A younger version of the reader disentangling the writer?

Woodstock

As Per

The task of the researcher is to disprove the null hypothesis, or the claim that there is no difference between, for example, two levels of something. Since it's usually impractical to inspect all instances of something in a population, we select a sample which - if valid - is representative of the population at a level of confidence that we are willing to accept (typically 95 percent). We run the study, come up with findings, and report that we are 95 percent confident that the findings we came up with by looking at the sample are the same findings we would have come up with if we had looked at the entire population. Alternately, there is only a five percent chance that the findings we came up with would have appeared if no real difference exists between the two levels. Further, when we say a finding is statistically significant at the .05 level, we mean that if we were to run the study or investigation n number of times, we would come up with the same finding 95 percent of the time. Level of confidence is kind of like the amount of reasonable doubt we are willing to accept.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Woman XXV

She medaled in conjugation speed
and the javelin throw,
and holds advanced degrees in episodic aimlessness.
Her latest pin is ancient alphabets,
and she's been spotted at the deli counter
practicing cursive.
I forget why I'm standing in line.

Corrado Amati

The Gypsy Girl’s Guile

          for Catherine Mary Connolly (1969-2012)

The practitioners of inner peace
clamor for recognition
offstage in the wings
among the jugglers and other resellers
of souls worldwide.
They insist on being heard
and resent the assertion
that the end is in the beginning.
Many are puzzled
and await word from above.
It will come.
The gypsy girl knows this.
The gypsy girl knows the Secret
of the Dance as well
which she guards with her guile.
She has used her guile many times
to get what she wanted.
She would have it no other way.
Neither would those
seeking her gifts
word of which has been spread
throughout the land by fireflies.
They come for a glimpse
of her painted toes.
They do this with abandon
and without regret.
Offshore, a vessel lurches
trying to make headway.
The sea enjoys this sort of thing.
The vessel will arrive on time.
The gypsy girl can see this too
with a clarity
that would put most to shame.

Greenhorn! and the Art of Imperfection

Me. And me now.
          - James Joyce, Ulysses

I hadn't heard that expression since Cork Hill.
Half a century ago.
My grandfather and his cronies, sucking suds at the corner saloon.
Polish fellas. Words unminced.
You betta get the hell outta here!
C-130s. Touch and go,
bringing fame and (mis)fortune.
But now, from a couple of fogeys in The Bellevue.
Might as well have been the psych ward.
Might as well have been spring.
Black clouds rolling in over last night's ninth-inning call.
These are the Majors,
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
Conundrums amid homemade specials.
Farm fresh. Indeed!
A summer stew. Bland. Soy sauce? Sorry.
Hickory, dickory, dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck . . . out!
Friends in another booth telling my daughter and me
about the berm in their backyard.
To quiet the road noise.
Berm. Another term I hadn't heard in a while.
Thirteen years, if you must. (And, of course, you must!)
A house in a new development.
With berm to quiet . . . the madding crowd.
Down payment and all.
Here we go! à la Heath Ledger.
(Where DID he go? Better: Where did WE go?)
Significant other #2 morphing into insignificant ex #2.
I suppose it does take two to tango.
Or, maybe three?
The rice bowl with crack.
The Wabi-sabi(ness) of it all, yes?
There must be some kind of way out of here,
said the joker to the thief, . . . .

Steamboat Willie (1928)