Screen Dump 226

Incidentally, the sidebar was a hit
accolades from the second floor
vying for a seat behind home plate where it always seems . . .
You could have at least tried
but, no biggie, I rarely expect more . . .
It's just one of those things
that seems to gain momentum . . . with each stroke . . .
Your dreams of gymnasts
before suiting-up . . . or suiting-down
for your latest foray . . . into the Land of Reps . . .
all eyes on your prize-winning muffins . . .
A trophy case in a dusty doilied parlor
Grampa at the Stromberg-Carlson
the days when (k)nights were bold
and steeds were prancing
with poor Miniver growing leaner by the nanosecond . . .

Kate Moss

Screen Dump 225

. . . nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.
          - E. E. Cummings

Your n of 1 experiment . . . or experiments . . .
where I - and many - have never traveled
though I'm sure our dreams have dipped in a toe or two
testing the water with a fragility so intense
its texture colors other lands
and summons players . . . to the play
conjuring the slots in Atlantic City
where . . . in another time . . . your look unclosed the odds-and-enders
lost in the snows of high summer
mesmerized by the sound of the bangles
encircling your thin wrists . . .
your voice . . . the color of rain . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 224

But then someone says . . . Oh, forget it . . .
So what's the point? . . .
Yes, we all mix fragments of memoirs
into what we would like to think are tasty stews . . .
puff . . . puff . . . puff . . . the Magic Dragon . . .
The Etch-A-Sketch approach to lingua franca . . .
Your meal tucked into Styrofoam . . .
Your friends . . . back to worrying gingivitis . . .
Please don't blame them . . .
Ask yourself how often you staked the wrong claim
quibbling over the placement of tchotchkes
your voice lifting . . . into a marginal climb . . .
the hometown favorites benched . . .
And now, Maestro? . . .
Pinning your spitshined accomplishments
as if those in the know knew . . .
A terracotta trophy supersized for the winner . . .

Anka Zhuravleva

70 Lines Randomly Selected from the 2,593 Lines in the 137 Poems
Composed in my 70th Year Using the Random Integer Generator at
random.org on my 70th 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 Lexicon of the Ancients . . . and then some . . .
Ticking off insignificant others . . . who played a role . . .
Your pics of random lives . . . were scanned . . . and planted . . .
I believed in you up to the last umlaut . . .
There's a time and place for such levity . . .
These things happen . . . I was told . . . in fourth grade . . .
Can you imagine? . . .
Asking yourself Who wrote that? . . .
Do you fear being called up? . . .
Or shortsightedness? . . .
You have rubbed the relationship raw . . . the reality balderdash . . .
Passing you on the way to the subway
but worry HIRD (Hip Internal Rotation Deficit) . . .
Losing track of fiendish departures . . .
The momentary loss . . .
Having a smoke? . . .
Into the Twilight Zone . . .
You contemplate settling for even less . . . most do, yes? . . .
New morphological evidence appears . . . on your desktop . . .
You as steampunk . . .
The anchovies engaged in their own trancelike deceptions? . . .
Checking your email for holiday doodads
and lonesome grins
you highlight . . . the (pen)ultimatum
skitter out of earshot . . .
Can compel you to tweak your memories . . . your incidentals . . .
Pics . . . of you . . . 10, 20 years ago
sucked in by the makeover . . .
Now what? . . .
It's not so bad . . . Not bad at all in fact . . .
Of both open and closed mics . . .
If the green's good . . . it's all good . . .
The nitty-grittiness . . . and all that jazz . . .
You collected empties (not new)
rarely returning before 4 AM
far from the insistent irrelevancies
as votaries engage an infinite loop . . .
An RV goes by
from your old neighborhood . . .
Building an argument for change, for example,
and other borderline personalities
all spiffed-up, of course,
just like in the good old days . . .
The sleep of innocents . . .
You have videotaped hours of makeovers . . .
And to be corrected analyzed blue-penciled . . .
You've seen these parlor tricks before . . .
You're only as good as? . . . Really? . . .
This is the scary part
next to one another . . .
Using the app Cyrano to text someone by someone else
staring you down . . . not that easy to lose, yes? . . .
Yellowing with age, I couldn't help but think of the foghorn
before it was too late . . .
Your words rising from their moorings
is costing too much time . . .
Surely this will morph into an eponymous best seller
and other such inconveniences . . .
of the difference between suspend . . . and pause
however . . . whenever . . . wherever . . .
I mean that's where we will surely find authenticity
to the concentration on gesture
to the sound of the surf
talking up the pleasures of silk . . . the fury of connections
oblivious to the nuances of those in the know . . .
The spin cycle is almost over, yes? . . .
Connecting the dots of the day
magic markers bleed through the paper
of coolheaded air traffic controllers
at Nassau Community College . . .

Tintern Abbey

Screen Dump 223

You're prattling on . . . about barometric pressure and migraines . . .
Hiding under sheets of sound . . .
trying to make the most of the nose-thumbing day
threatening to botch the weekend . . .
Release the algorithms
but please try not to frighten the newly-hatched
who have their own 12-step program to master . . .
A hummingbird's cue
and you're into the next chapter and verse
tallying the circumstances that squeezed through the aperture . . .

Lydia Roberts