Not Just Yet

Your eyeliner tells a different story.
Cartons upon cartons upon cartons delivered
in a misrepresentation of facts.
And where in the stream of events did you place yourself?
There's no telling when you too will be dropped.
Waiting for. Waiting for.
Insinuations jumping out of the woodwork
without regard for the other players in this mini-drama
which airs Saturday evening on cable.
Come out with it, already.
You know you're bursting with others.
The excavations bronzed.
The heat-stroked field always a good excuse.

Midnight at Hannaford

Something is rotten in Deli, and there's a delay in Dairy, and the Sirens in Pastry are rehearsing like crazy. I'm trying to decide cart, basket, or gondola, while making small talk with condiments. Something's out of balance. The theme's been changed to Detroit, and Kukla, Fran, and Ollie are opening in Produce. A memorandum of understanding is causing confusion in Meats, and the Blue Light Specials are turning green. And now look! The butcher in the bloody apron, the baker, and the candlestick maker are throwing tantrums in aisle 5, and Little Miss Something or Other is again complaining about the curds and whey. She's demanding double coupons, and calling for backup. The Manager has called in the Bomb Squad. Perry Como is crooning over Philip Glass's Koyaanisqatsi, and my grandmother is here from the grave, ready to Polka. I'm rethinking understudies, and the number of times. Ride it out, put in for a lateral, max out your sick leave.

Redacted

And then you get this text
about trying too hard,
and you think,
this was yesterday,
the indescribable conundrum of we
as in we had decided this.
So you look out the window -
which is streaked with rain -
to see who's running the show
and you're stopped
for speeding,
the overdue books in the back seat
staring at the melodrama
of two fingers.
And now you're asking me what?

Sarolta Ban

Short Stack

Someone's ordered pancakes.
Someone else has ordered an omelet
but you're counting the words
in this morning's fax.
The genie doubling as cabbie
is taking a shortcut
to avoid the bottleneck at the bridge.
It's a different bottleneck
and a different bridge.
Another hot one
the sidewalks costumed
colorful crowded
cloud banks on the way.
The garden veggies will be happy.
What about you?
Have you been here before?
Have the 20 questions upended you?
You'll have plenty of time to tweet
after the downpour.
Besides, we still have two wishes left, yes?

The Questioner of the Sphinx by Elihu Vedder (1863)

The Lonesome Vigil of Wind-Ups

You say you're not into the long-term . . .
The insouciance of the neighborhood pins you . . .
The moms and pops . . .
And the arias . . .
When the moon hits your eye like a big . . .
(Sing along with me) . . .
Your excuse is legendary . . .
You have enough points . . .
Your life as facade is beginning to read like a new Chapter Four . . .
Your sense of balance back . . .
(Just ask the shared bicycles) . . .
Think about us in the we hours . . .
Demand directions and seconds . . .
And thirds . . .
The spuds are delicious, and an excellent source of renewable energy . . .
Wait! One more thing: you too are here and here and here . . .

Woman XL

And then she says . . . I want to clown around and around . . . and around . . . and around . . . and take that out . . . and put that in . . . favorite color? . . . three . . . I enjoy variations on that theme . . . don't you? . . . especially in A minor . . . I've told you that in the summer I sometimes do . . . and I sometimes do not . . . I will only respond to emails from endangered species . . . a cigarette? . . . never . . . of course I've tried that . . . and that too . . . and three . . . and four . . . I was there, you know . . . in the wings . . . with wings . . . poetry is TMI . . . courting poor taste? . . . we are all collapsible . . . combustible . . . collateral . . . a contextualist? . . . a constructivist? . . . blah blah blah . . . I am consumed by the game . . . I am costumed for the game . . . I am the game . . . of chance . . . of choice . . . your choice . . . your move . . . P-QN4 . . .

Proof

Let x equal the cold.
          - Anthony Hopkins in Proof (2005)

The mathematicians with half-lives are checking your proof
talking their way through the axioms on Knife's Edge
the conjectures at Herring Cove
the theorems along the Mohawk,
shepherding you past the rentals, the SROs, condos, two-families;
the faces in the windows of your landscapes
reflecting the ambiguity of your words.
Your still lifes passed the rigor of bicycle days,
coaster brakes waiting behind package stores,
ifs, ands, and buts triangulating the derivatives
barely visible through the brushstrokes,
armatures buckling under symbols shape-shifting with the wait staff,
your chalk drawn and ready.
You check for the rewrite; launch into the monologue.
The amphitheater begins to fill with iterations of the same person.
A stranger. You were told this would happen.

Woman XXXIX

She says she wants to ride
and pulls up on her Harley.
I roll my Schwinn
back into the garage.

Woman XXXVIII

She crosses her Ts
and her legs
and dots her eyes
with innuendo.
She has mastered
the art of wordlessness.
Seeing her
in a summer dress,
I am born again.

68 Lines Randomly Selected from the 2,088 Lines in the 118 Poems
Composed in my 68th Year Using the Random Integer Generator at
random.org on my 68th Birthday over 3000 Miles from Tintern Abbey

. . . thy wild eyes these gleams of past existence.
          - William Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

the angles spellbinding, infectious with singsong
and then, again, you decide to look at the sketches of domes in cities
as you follow the directions
carrying a Louis Vuitton bag
you'd think solutions would drop from the sky
who are we to downplay the Hallmarkian tentacles?
it is tomorrow, yes?
ambling along under cover and without a mean streak
as items on a grocery list
meaning?
everything? anything? nothing?
the tide turns just when we think
to their delicate lives backstage
things have changed
I think not
there are too many people here
fill in the gaps
as fearful as feared
you will know them when you see them
you're pontificating again. I thought you were over that
yet unconvincing, as if the bell lappers knew all along
there was no turning back
titled Mangled Hands
another with tickets to a double-header
how we got from there to here
and I was back at Barnes & Noble
but they're going ahead with the auditions anyway
you googlemap the directions from here to there
time now to plow out
it was a close encounter. one for the archives
the windiness of cities
nonchalance. then trying something else. as mediocre
everyone's trying to hide
stuck in traffic
the lights flicker. valets exchange glances. the monitor lapses into a
this time you will not be unhinged by reflections of your former selves
a dawning? who knew?
creating havoc, scenes colliding, mounting to confusion
and that something is filing past as we speak
as she fills her eyes with world-weariness
only to default to comforters
but you know that you do
solitary moment will wrap its arms around you and guide you to the
engaged by the same old same old
challenging our identity flatten as one who knows
but that's for another poem
I for one want my writers blocked
the players at the foot of your bed await direction
a woman in white, a small boy, a girl, a small dog
and then?
there was no church. ask around. no church
especially now with the neighborhood Velcro'd
by her areola
ideally suited to multitaskers
yourself in the cutlery but then repaired to the foyer where a well
everyone seems to think that's OK
the clock's face again pokes in
with Dylan singing, I'm sailing away, my own true love
the tingling ebb and flow
maybe it was Bob Dylan
something about Rothko's rooms
to secure a small stipend to tide you over
who - let's face it - are in it for the freebies
creating havoc, scenes colliding, mounting to confusion
for her stats
you know that lately it's been a rabbit hole
there will be no setting the record straight
boys and girls, children of all ages

Tintern Abbey

Woman XXXVII

She pores over Kafka's words,
muttering something about
an unreliable narrator,
tells me he never read ads
because he didn't want to want.
She quotes him and says
a book should serve as an ax
for the frozen sea within us.
We become vegans.
She starts calling me Gregor.

Irma Haselberger