Concession to a Paraphrase

And quieting dreams in the sleepers in darkness. . . .

          - Wallace Stevens

Without the enjambment at the weary end of November,
you'd be lost forever to the moon and its quieting dreams.
The cat mrkgnaoing, Move on! Move on!
Your pacing solves nothing.

Funny, you know this as well as I.
Yes, the scholarship is evident, but misplaced.
Your announcement with the shades drawn against the traffic light
opens a door and your eyes to the darkness

and back to an earlier season of silence -
the linguistic equivalent of hammering nails into flesh.
When was this, anyway?
Yesterday? Last year? Five years ago?
I don't remember. Do you?
The tureen quivers with nonsense syllables.
The evidentiary moment remains.
Your car idling.
The snow, too, advancing.
Of course, the video shows that there's more in the final paragraph
than referenced in your text.
The Art of Omission, yes?
So little time left out of tempo with footnotes no less.

Francesca Woodman

Gastronomy 101

The charcuterie-loaded menu piqued your interest. You took the lift to the loft where it was all about to happen - a tough reservation, but well worth the wait staff who had been trained in various mid-Atlantic states of service. A carousel stood in for the usual round-robin. You lost yourself in the cutlery but then repaired to the foyer where a well-seasoned foodie held forth with tales of tails from exotic eateries. Your esteemed colleague failed to show . . . again.

Wolvesmouth's Craig Thornton

The Dream of Ringlets . . . Again

You fail to anticipate the superfluousness
of the run-through

and run home to check your notes,
channel-surfing for answers to the 20 questions

hanging around the stoop.
Your dog uses a Kindle to calibrate loneliness

then texts the stationmaster
who reassures all that there are still only three colors

and a partridge in the pear tree.
Someone arrives on the 11:05

and begins dismantling the prose
cluttering the entryway.

Who was that masked man/woman?
Have you checked in with your sponsors?

Perhaps they can spare the change
although it's unlikely that the 12-tone mini-u-et

will carry the burden of absence.
The viewers are sure to expect more.

You know this despite the fatigue
pestering your keyboard.

It's time to come clean.
Not a big deal. Never was. Never will be.

Vally Nomidou

Lately, the Bottlenecking

Your GPS is working overtime trying to avoid a turn for the worse as if a solitary moment will wrap its arms around you and guide you to the reference desk where tentacles of connections await your gentle probing. How often have you channel-surfed only to find that the best buys are unwilling to participate in your Glass Bead Game? Your hair was longer then, wasn't it? Everyone's was. I can't say that I remember The Elements of Style but I do remember that it was a long, strange trip, one we failed to duplicate though we tried several times with a collection of cosmopolitan cocktails. We even contacted the Watermelon Sugar Man who was nice enough to direct us to a pickle patch. With mixed results, I continue.

Satantango (1994)

Woman XXXII

Standing next to her
in the elevator
I am enveloped by her scent
and miss my floor.

Charlotte Gainsbourg

That's Not Going To Happen

Especially now, with the cat out of the bag
the holiday season ready to pounce
and your latest tête-à-tête simmering in the atelier.
Listening to covers while journaling
will buy you the anonymity
you've convinced yourself you need
and enable you to resume your place in line.
The Persian rug in the room is gone
as are the white beaches
with the beached iMacs.
You've been fortunate enough
to live the life of make-believe,
and get away with it, for the most part.
I'm surprised you were never called
to the front office, that strange transfer station
populated with mannequins
of questionable character.
If only you had described the beauty
of the algorithm you wrote that tied it all together,
you could have redeemed the coupons
downloaded in anticipation.
That would have been quite a coup.
Too late now. Too late for most things.
Enter your username and password
then click the box for Remember Me.

The Turin Horse (2011)

He Said She Said I Said You Said

Even adultery has morality to it.
          - Laura Dern, We Don't Live Here Anymore (2004)

You lose yourself - or try to lose yourself - in things,
in music, in ideas, in people
but the aesthetics keep poking through -
The aesthetics?
Yes, the aesthetics. -
keeping you up at night calibrating the angularities
the curvatures
mining the immense vocabulary of the body,
the immense vocabulary of the other.
Something about jettisoning the detritus.
The 12 steps out the window.
And, what, you thought that was it?
Oh yeah, repainting the entryway was a great idea.
A therapeutic tour-de-force.
Revisit the scenes, this time in 3D -
the added dimension is sure to make a difference.

Francesca Woodman

Woman XXXI

She takes in the exhibits
with Modigliani's eyes
unslinging her SLR
to capture the intimacies
in the maze of back galleries.

Running the Changes

You skim the dog-eared blue-lined notebooks
lying next to your bed
for new words, different words
to ease the ache of repetition,
the ache of the old.
The hour arrives at the wrong address,
laughs, lingers, and you forget the difference
between high and low drama
the loss surfacing after closing
as if it mattered to the rent-a-magician
left waiting in the Green Room,
wand in hand, as generators,
prepped to weather the nor'easter,
exit through the gift shop.
Again, the rehearsals proved futile,
frustrating, the French horn player
running the changes
through his backward-facing bell
making it new, until, in an eyeblink,
it was old, boredom seeping in, abracadabra! -
the furniture, the cat, and you, gone.

Alice's Last Last Ouija Game by Paul Grand