Friday, January 25, 2013

Out-of-Sync

The snow is the least of your worries.
Fill your pockets with pebbles and see if that helps.
Do you recognize any of these facades,
some new, some rehabbed?
Where are you, anyway?
There are too many people here
talking at the same time.
Are they getting it down accurately?
Do you think you should ask?
Have you ever asked?
You'll never know, you know.
These last two weeks have been trying
to get into the picture,
pushing and shoving, trying
to insinuate themselves onto your to-do list.
When did sharing go out-of-sync?
Continue to review the dailies
and build digital snowwomen until spring erupts
with warm breezes and open windows.
What else is there to do?
Why do your footsteps betray indecisiveness?
Did you think he/she still cared?

Anja Niemi

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Hazarding Extinction

The spooky genius in you again hazards extinction. Has the inevitable contact with its inevitable uncoupling allowed you to pass through without knowing why, without clicking I agree, without committing to the restraining posture of the unchartable, the words squeezed, the outcome windswept? Does the alternative, laced with spirals of forgotten, seem out of reach? Why bother? No idea? The rehearsal to get it right, alone, without collaboration, is enough, you think, to confess to, again and again and again?

Anja Niemi

Friday, January 18, 2013

Easier Not Easy

The subsequent pleasure, a map for the less-traveled.
This is not a fluke.
The tick-tock tick-tock surcease of sorrow.
Perfunctory, yes?
What of those without ambition for catharsis?
Is this why you rise early, brimming with alterations,
and a new pocket protector?
Little matter. No one will be duped.
Nothing incidental here in the foundry of stamped emotion.
You can examine it, dissect it, take it for a walk -
without recrimination without regret -
leaving indelible - and very real - turnabouts
for those who feel nothing about feeling nothing.

Anja Niemi

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Again the Snow

Enough already with the requisitioning!
I'm up-to-here with the whatever-you-call-it-ese!
And, please, return the funnel to Shelf #221-B.
We're done with that part of it - at least for now.

Repositioning the sentence fragments
could change the course of your personal history.
The elements of style?
A glimmer in your glass eye no doubt.

The cruise ship aground. (A hyphenated juncture.)
Straight bingo and Prize-O under house arrest.
Forget the iterations on (insert title)-for-a-Day.
You had your chance. The days tumbling past fast.

Your clothes and furniture moved in(to storage).
Wait, this dialogue is unrehearsed.
Not unlike the yesterdays, yes?
I thought we had agreed on the parameters of then, then.

Again, the snow.
And the drifting.
And the hunkering down.

Excerpting prepublication quotes is a No-No.
That's a tad stupider than expected, isn't it?
Of course, with the cumuli - very large cumuli, I might add -
backgrounding the scenario, everything seems hunky-dory.

That's his/her Jack Russell's name, isn't it?
Who? David Bowie?
A review in TLS sent him over the edge.
That, too?

Q&As! I want Q&As!
Loopholes and segues and digressions and sidebars and whatnots.
Oh, the Places You'll Go! à la the good Doctor.
More like the places you should've gone, yes?

Were the consequences considered
or simply added to the stew willy-nilly?
Thanatopic he/she was heard to say.
As reported?

Again, the snow.
And the drifting.
And the hunkering down.

Several bought into that.
And why not, it was Wikipedia'd?
Send in the copyeditors with their retractable colored pencils.
They're paid to write wrongs.

Funny how the genes have their own agenda
which, up until a day or two ago, ruled.
Picture the nanoscientists sans venue
on a typical dressed-down Friday abroad.

Could be fun, yes? parlaying a piece of the voice
operating in second gear, blurbs formulaic and sepia'd
in dead languages we all know and love.
Try vetting that, and I guarantee you'll run into a group

of entrepreneurs on holiday smacking their lips
with unbridled self-indulgence
the whole thing underwritten by the makers of Freytag's Pyramid.
Got more?

Again, the snow.
And the drifting.
And the hunkering down.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison





Saturday, January 12, 2013

A Most Beautiful World

And then there's this sound

like a truck hitting a truck

and you try to convince yourself

that you didn't hear it.

Then it happens again

and black smoke starts streaming

out of the fresh-air vents.

And the kid sitting next to you asks

if this is supposed to be happening.

And you can't answer.

You can't even remember your name.

So you put your arm around the kid

and reach your other hand

to the woman across the aisle.

And she takes it.

And you hold on.


Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Leaving Them Ho-Humming

OK, well, maybe not, but I still think it's a good idea. One that could fly. How could it not, given the enticement? It's not every day that you get a break like that. And just think, in no time, you'll have that look which many find comforting as well as encompassing. I know I could have shopped around but, really, to what end? Even Cicero's third oration against Catiline drooped, leaving the crowd ho-humming. Don't play dumb. You know exactly what I mean. The taxing our endurance bit. Over the top? Yeah, so? And as for quantum computing? Listen, you take this cab, and I'll take that one, and we'll count down the difference, then apply the algorithm. Are you in or out? Or in and out? Not unlike Schrödinger's kitty, yes? You'll see. You keep telling me All Gaul is divided into three parts. OK, everything's connected. Entangled. I'll pinch that. You're not the only one with a Many Worlds bumper sticker, you know. Forget the downtime. Insignificant. Tell me, Does he ever leave the house? Does he ever come out? Have you ever seen him except on Skype? I'm not talking Lovecraft, here. Go ahead, ping it.

Monday, January 7, 2013

The Weather Outside

But then the tide turned and we were caught in the middle without the flicker. We sat there unconvinced stuffing ourselves like olives until the light changed and the cabs resumed their squabbling. It was good to see green. Later at Joe's Tavern we continued our dissection of Part One which I felt was the least compelling of all three especially in Blu-ray. I was in the minority so I decided to try one of the highly recommended reds from Argentina. We had a good time despite the candles and cranky plumbing.

Christopher Jacrot

Friday, January 4, 2013

Segue to the Autodidact

You don't know about that
and you don't want to know about that
so you hit Delete
and the carny ride begins
slowly at first
the barleycorned crowd cheering
up close and personal
snow falling in sheets
reminding you of the last time
and the time before that.
Smitten with interiors - a metaphor
according to the catalog
for unfulfilled longing -
you, wide-eyed, slack-jawed,
decide to re-shoot the final scene
without backup
the ponderous critiques
sclerotic and sepia'd.
Time now to plow out.
Time to take to the highway.
Recharge the mise-en-scène.
All eyes on the skies.
The clock's ticking sticking.
The beats beating the juicer
to the punch bowl
crop dusting taking on new meaning.
Informed by cable, several jig
speak of the good ol' days
iPhones and iPads and iWhatnots
stuck in traffic.
The debate continues
over what whomsoever's words mean.
I did this. I did that.
You however want to to do this
insisting on a raincheck
searching your pockets for the stub.
Sans fanfare.
Sans battlecry.
You want to just do it.
The cineplex spilling into the street.
Talking heads demanding
seconds, thirds, fourths.
You will know them when you see them.
And you will let them know
when you know.
Trust in the text (there is no other).


Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Your Answering Machine Is Asking Questions

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words
mean so many different things."

          - Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

You're not sure it's a question,
and you're trying to convince yourself
that you couldn't care less.
But you know that you do.
You know that lately it's been a rabbit hole.
So you put aside the question
in question, and think again
about Alice, in disguise, in your dream,
carrying a Louis Vuitton bag,
and wearing one of his huge hats
in the manner of the Red Queen.