Monday, October 7, 2024

Screen Dump 784

The self forms at the edge of desire.
          - Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet

Days and nights . . . days and nights
encounters in off hours
with translators of Ancient Greek
you and sleep parting ways
your self-portrait mirrored in a convex mirror . . .
blindfolded, yet? . . .
I mean, of course, until . . . on the horizon . . .
palms up . . . weighing the air . . .
anticipating departure . . .
You sometimes worry in the middle of it
how they're faring . . .
referencing Tolstoy on kindness
a segue to a conversation about why . . .
Forget that . . .
You want to haze transformations (OK, I get it!)
too excited too much too late . . .
it seems to click in so nicely
you want to take this poem on vacation, yes? . . .

Antonio Palmerini


Saturday, September 28, 2024

Screen Dump 783

Disparate marks quotes letters numbers . . .
indifference spilling over onto the floor
and you're telling me about
the day's little tragedies . . .
the interiority enlarged
squashing decouplings of moments
that were chosen to color the room
where someone is doing laps
in a claw-footed tub . . .
On the far hill two castles . . .
You're answering texts with your voice
carrying the irrelevancy in your canvas backpack . . .
You worried pleather then opted for cerulian
which has nothing to do with the overdue landscape . . .
It's OK, yes? . . . hoping not to disrupt
the train of thought
chuffing toward derailment . . .
Circus wagons will be cleared in no time . . .
Think puppets . . . that always seems to work . . .
Am I wrong? . . .
Regardless, the late summer morning is happily
urging voices to sample the mélange . . .
Soon, streets will be overrun with tourists . . .
Again, a near miss . . .

Fabio Chizzola


Monday, September 23, 2024

Screen Dump 782

Mind-boggling show and tells
puppy-like on makeshift silent-screen backlots
sometimes among headstones
to make the most of rubbings . . .
The sacred geometry of chance . . .
Then elapsation . . . and you're elsewhere
jabbering for roles
that highlight your good-to-the-last-drop selfies . . .
If only the timer . . .
Photoshopped, perhaps? . . .
But that's not the shape of your heart, yes? . . .
On this stage what matters is no longer a matter . . .
up and out with tail no longer bushy . . .
A necromancer materializes . . . to choreograph
a dance with realignment
and proprioception for flagging élans vital . . .

Antonio Palmerini


Friday, September 13, 2024

Screen Dump 781

You're three-quarters in, more like four-fifths . . .
the fit and finish
of many years of off-and-on attempts
at involvement, at engagement . . .
The files in your folder labeled fodder . . .
encryption, hybridity, binaries . . .
Think devolution . . . if you want to spiral . . .
and please don't bring up the failed-essay deal
as if you default aspire to fragmentation . . .
If only counters zeroed-out
maybe you wouldn't . . .
Wouldn't what? . . .
There will be no retrospection today . . .
or tomorrow . . .
That was then, yes? . . .
Try the trip-wire
re-creating or recreating the page
with clips from a different genre . . .
Which is? . . .
You know, prose poems mimicking oral storytelling . . .
Yes, and so begins the mismatch:
a minute ago you were 25 . . .
and now? . . .
I suppose preponderance . . .
That makes no sense . . .
And here comes Stanislavski's An Actor Prepares . . .
That neither . . .
OK, how about to the manner born
with yourself inside yourself . . .
filling notebooks
using the Leonardo Encryption App
day in day out . . .

Antonio Palmerini







Monday, September 9, 2024

Screen Dump 780

A discomfort has crept into the scene . . .
OK, but what's going to happen will happen, yes? . . .
Tell me, have you packed a picnic lunch? . . .
We hold our breaths as companions of the dying
and zoom in to color-code innuendoes
tabled from past table-reads . . .
There was a beginning
something bespoked as is so often the case
in this word-flurried world
with dwellings conjured from sand . . .
You're about to reserve your spot in the moment
which will proceed as these moments typically do
approaching a fork . . . and then? . . .

Leila Forés


Sunday, September 1, 2024

Screen Dump 183

(reposted from Saturday, February 14, 2015)

. . . the absolute inanity of calling anything a fictional essay.
          - Anne Carson

You talk at length with Keats . . .
You ask about his words which you want to believe
were written in rooms with high ceilings . . .
You ask him to look at what you're working on . . .
He says he will . . . but then runs out of time . . .
There is no way back . . .
You worry the final exam . . .
Later you are able to define infidelity to your satisfaction . . .
though it isn't . . .
Strange how quickly the principled departs
and leaves you in the middle of a busy intersection . . .
sans lines . . .
Have you forgotten to call the plumber about the leaky faucet? . . .
I thought so . . .
The voice of God sounds human, yes? . . .
It's nothing . . . just the reluctance to admit the fool . . .
And your obsessions? . . . Are they reality? . . .
Shouldn't they be? . . .
If the problem is systemic . . .
Yes! Yes! I know . . .
But then when was the line actually crossed? . . .
You mean crossed so that we both knew? . . .
Your words float downstream . . . farther and farther . . .

Sarah Moon


Sunday, August 25, 2024

A wonderful poem by my daughter, Tara:

Poem on the Bus

In my reverie
could there ever be strife?
Maybe that's like assuming
one would never have a bad day
How accustomed we are
masking our feelings
The answer to questions
fueled by judgment
When in reality
contradictions
make things palpable



Monday, August 19, 2024

Sergei

You're trying to nail down the left hand
of Rachmaninoff’s no. 3 in D minor
Nearly impossible to play!
eyes wide open in a room with the lights out
eigengrau . . . a grayness
not the same as practicing études in conservatory
blindfolded with the lights on . . .
Sergei himself here in the darkness
the King of Span
his gigantic paw stretching
the interval of a 13th on the keyboard
chuckling as you struggle to hold your posture
knowing a cramp is on its way . . .
you looking away . . .
glissando-ing like a caged animal
until the wooden hammers
blanketed in compressed felt -
the tuner's pin controlling their hardness
softening the tone -
acquiesce . . . releasing you into the world of light . . .



Friday, August 16, 2024

Screen Dump 779

Isn’t it time to resume the obligatory? . . .
Can you imagine? . . .
Not unlike the postmodern foisted upon minions
when no one was looking
and the brownout was force-fed . . .
And just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, yes? . . .
Is it safe? quoth Sir Laurence . . . to the Marathon Man . . .
Low-lying clouds should be forgiven . . .
They know not . . . As for you? . . .
The same is not true . . . You knew . . . around the block
and then some . . .

Wendy Bevan


Thursday, August 15, 2024

Screen Dump 778

A one-size-fits-all transcription of experience
and your mind's ear takes a break today at Mickey D's -
generic, anti-confessional, without
the clawing happenstance of a Johnny Depp lookalike
backstroking in a sea of Elmer's Glue . . .
You continue to get antsy over dead zones . . .
Who doesn't? . . . but do we need two of anything? . . .
Attention-deficit mavens and their obsession
with the gap between fit and finish
transforming stage directions into librettos
puts one in the mood for a slice of pizza
with the works . . . from Baldy's on Cork Hill –
a stopgap for fortune tellers and fortune hunters . . .
If at any point you feel small, you should . . .

Wendy Bevan


Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Screen Dump 777

This poem is a game of scrabble . . . a game of babble
a game of mirrored sunglasses reflecting
a box of colored pencils . . . as you
thumb through Augusten Burroughs's Dry
inviting a tangle of lines leading to a fun house
in the middle of a re-enactment . . . as if
parallel parking a shopping cart were sufficient . . .
Again you argue the clock
with thoughts of a drybrush masterpiece
by Andrew Wyeth . . . at the Fenimore Museum . . .
Everyone deserves a break today . . .
Why today? . . . Why today the blue vacuum with dry load
applied to a dry support
from your days revitalizing sober living apartments? . . .

Wendy Bevan


Tuesday, August 13, 2024

Screen Dump 776

You seem to enjoy the almostness of your borderline personality
carrying on about the leaks in emptiness
that accompany Bruegger's Everything Bagels
and the duffel bags . . . of risky narcissists
adorned with fidgety flight tags
from the Bucket's 100 Places to Visit Before Passing . . .
Stay the merriment became your duly-noted mantra
even after your breaths exceeded the numbers
and you hop-scotched with bouquets of trillium
that happened by on their way
to yet another ho-hum commercial break
that . . . despite the menagerie . . . always made you chuckle . . .
especially when Facebook friends pointed to lapses in serving styles . . .
And you do believe yourself, yes?

Wendy Bevan


Monday, August 12, 2024

Screen Dump 775

Postcards from the corner office offer tips
on managing the parts of life that make no sense:
seductive five-star creamsicles
soundtracked by melodic lines nursing
pentatonic and catatonic scales . . .
You pride yourself on inscrutable self-scrutiny
the examined life . . . and all that
as if parroting fan-fiction of the Canon
through closed lips
makes dumbing down the default . . .
So why the obsession with spoon-fed fork-tonguers? . . .
The files . . . sight-read
have been sealed . . . and now
your raised hand is being co-dependently ignored . . .

Wendy Bevan


Sunday, August 11, 2024

Screen Dump 774

You're charged with toggling the laugh track
while waiting in the checkout line
at the supermarket . . .
The manager is a clown suit . . .
A clown suit is a root canal sans Novocain . . .
A clown suit is a box lunch . . .
An after-the-fact afterthought . . .
Your flight is taxiing
and now the ticket person in a clown suit
is telling you you're in the wrong line
but there's a million dollar smile
on a million dollar baby
in a million dollar condo
with a million dollar (fill in the blank) _____

Wendy Bevan


Saturday, August 10, 2024

Screen Dump 773

The subject has become the object . . .
It happens whenever you click Search . . . igniting associations . . .
The tendency to remain open
while people hover . . . submitting requests . . .
Are you ready to give it up? . . . to give in? . . .
Let's hope not . . . at least not until
your fingers are ready and the score is on the stands . . .
Opening statements, please . . .
What if we were to record every other word? . . .
Would nonsense reign? . . .
Would it become the New Now? . . .
You were late . . . with revisions . . . only
to be called out . . . to be called out . . . for redundancy . . .

Antonio Palmerini


Friday, August 9, 2024

Screen Dump 772

You count out change from a shiny metal change counter
attached to your belt with Velcro . . .
You score a merit badge for the likes of this . . .
Isn’t this romantic? . . .
An aging-out squeezebox expands and contracts
to the gesticulations of bystanders . . .
It’s a day away from eBay . . .
Forging ahead nonetheless
with less than Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels
you wait tables in reruns
buttdialing Ubers for Q&As
while running changes with after-hour noodlers . . .
A good misstep
as innocuous as an up-close-and-personal . . .



Wednesday, August 7, 2024

Screen Dump 771

Escaping through the cracks in your argument
following bread crumbs to the Temple of Incidentals
restless long legs
parody of a back-flap biography
you fret over brands of black pepper
focus on the container . . .
Stepping out onto the deck with eggs over easy, yes? . . .
And coffee? . . .
The seemingly insignificant? . . .
There's nothing wrong with invisibility
and lemon juice . . . held up to a light bulb
selecting from menu options
making do . . . treading water . . .
Come prepared to defend your thesis . . .

Antonio Palmerini


Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Screen Dump 770

The theatrics begin . . . with words up . . . words down
rehearsals . . . do not pass Go . . .
You know how it is
with everyone talking . . . at the same time . . .
It's tough to follow the storyline
if there is a storyline
but then some stories are better without a storyline . . .
Just let the events unfold
in your pocket . . . I don't care
little matter where . . .
Whatever's convenient for you
I'm trying to wrap my head around something
that will get me through the next few hours
or the next few minutes . . .

Antonio Palmerini


Monday, August 5, 2024

Screen Dump 769

Nights of reruns with brief, lost faces
feed the illusion of prediction
as if a magician's assistant living out of a suitcase
were cut in half . . .
location . . . location . . . location . . .
You as stopgap at the supermarket
comparing tongues with other sous chefs
squeezing into line for a virtual rollerama
of one-upmanship . . .
sampling tidbits for a breakout special
enjambed with abandon
awaiting a redo of the Breakfast of Champions . . .
The resident Kerouacian behind the deli counter
types a cemetery
on a roll of butcher paper . . .
a makeover for aspirants outside the walls
carries you through a thicket of unknowns
with one-way tickets to elsewhere . . .




Thursday, August 1, 2024

Screen Dump 768

You have a reputation for down time
for rearranging players and their parts . . .
It's all there . . . in your notebooks . . . on your (un)zip drive . . .
It has become your mantra . . .
Incomplete sentences . . . written with crayons
follow in your wake . . .
The manner in which they carry themselves
and the questions . . . left unanswered . . .
Trying to construct reality with Legos, yes? . . .
You and your erotic other captured on tape
with sticky wickets . . .
I never believed in falling prey to pews
but then again . . . and again . . .
Something is sure to befall one-nighters . . .

Kate Barry











Monday, July 15, 2024

Screen Dump 767

You worry language and drama-splicing . . .
the abracadabra-ness of the day
as Walmarteers stuffed with colorways
bottleneck roundabouts . . .
It's summer . . . waters are being tested . . .
You’ve streamed the beaches with an eye on binge-reading
the short stories in the Canon
beginning with John Cheever's The Swimmer
starring Burt Lancaster as Ned Merrill
in skin tight trunks
swimming across the county
in neighbor's pools
but it's fragmenting because Burt
is throttling a steam locomotive in The Train
which pit him as French Resistance-member Paul Labiche
against German Colonel Franz von Waldheim
played by Paul Scofield,
who is trying to move stolen art by train to Germany . . .
In the final scene
von Waldheim stays with the derailed train
crammed with crates labeled with the names of artists . . .
Labiche appears . . .
Von Waldheim mocks Labiche as artless . . .
Labiche shoots von Waldheim . . .
Percy Shelley and his wife Mary
a wild-eyed young redhead
backpack stuffed with Frankenstein
enter as if on cue . . .
the lone and level sands stretching far away . . .



Monday, July 8, 2024

Screen Dump 766

You insist you can be more than a swinger of birches . . .
You've had your fill of adult playpens
popping up in motion-sickness modules
of deconstructed shopping malls . . .
The oppressive heat forces you to chill
in the supermarket’s frozen food section
brimming with memoirists
collecting empties for eternity's sake . . .
It's all part of someone's master plan . . .
you're sure of it . . . despite fashionistas
shadowing you with shoulda woulda couldas . . .
The takeaways, yes, the takeaways, remain dicey . . .
And why is that? . . .
Surely the director allowed ample opportunity
for whatever directors allow ample opportunity for . . .
Film Studies 101 is about to stream The Turin Horse . . .
Do you think you're ready? . . .

Aneta Ivanova


Monday, July 1, 2024

Screen Dump 765

Augustine pockets pears and spills beans
in thirteen books
the self merely source material
a lost wax process for the staging of bigger questions . . .
Cezanne paints his apples
and rewrites the laws of perspective . . .
logorrhea is a masturbatorially public act . . .
The endeavor complicates . . .
one word follows another
not as its sequel but as its unmaking . . .
You distort . . . intentionally . . . unintentionally
and become enamored of your own engagement . . .
your own autofiction . . .
You roll out virtual howitzers
and execute reams of legal pads
hopscotching metaphors
on lines of macadam
awaiting wait staff for today's specials . . .
How to make it so to seem doable
especially now with summer people
collecting shells of happiness
drifting offshore
in and out of doors and into whitewashed rooms
unencumbered by a mind of winter . . .
You, like them, are shaped by resistance
tucking sheets . . .
pulling them into neat corners
while the commute slows
dropping morning news anchors . . .

Aneta Ivanova


Thursday, June 20, 2024

Screen Dump 764

You were shrunk by a shrink in a pop-up
during a blow-out BOGO sale
words flying off shelves
into Dharma bowls
prepped by line cooks for enlightenment . . .
presentation is everything, yes? . . .
There was a time . . . I mean . . .
I'm not sure what I mean . . .
without the script, perhaps? . . .
your one wild and precious life
walking Commercial Street
past Mary Oliver's ghost
sitting outside her oceanfront cottage
then on to the other end
Stanley Kunitz's tiered garden
snakes dangling head-down, entwined
in a brazen love-knot . . .
the tide lapping the Provincetown Inn
with memories of the Moors . . .
more than a bit raffish . . .
presided over by Scooter, the pet owl . . .
There is no other life . . .
Gary Snyder's homage
to log truck drivers:
In the high seat, before-dawn dark,
Polished hubs gleam
And the shiny diesel stack
warms and flutters
Up the Tyler Road grade
To the logging on Poorman creek.
Thirty miles of dust.
There is no other life . . . indeed . . .
This to be archived for odysseyites
in a reconfigured deconsecrated chapel
near Portofino, Italy . . .

Anja Niemi


Friday, June 14, 2024

Screen Dump 763

As if the movie was afraid . . .
so in the first episode
this face . . . and you're thinking
take this face through the whole movie
but nope, you're tossed into a dark room
writing over your writing
because you can't see . . .
words like dictation
the rain in Spain gives you wet brain . . .
Now you're worrying about remembering
to google unclogging a drain . . .
It's like that
the obliqueness
trying to fit it all into some designated,
predetermined framework . . .
The delusion of illusion, yes? . . .
and you're riffing on the responsibility
of the artist not to look away . . .
to render what to you is real . . .
But it's late, really late
for these visitors . . . these night stalkers
too late to be assailed
by the critic at the gate . . .
Too many weary heads
dislocating too many weary shoulders . . .

Carmen Watkins


Monday, June 3, 2024

Screen Dump 762

Lion-obsessed Venetian iconographies
the size of Montana
crowd your nightscapes . . .
animals hiding in twisted sheets
swipe smartphones . . .
walleyed tourists board water-buses
to carry them to paintings
displayed salon-style from floor to ceiling . . .
The neighborhood Carl Jung
at the wheel of a Ferrari
cruises you on your bimonthly talking cure
collecting your unconscious
to pry open the shyness
that smacks you back
to the darkness of OCD . . .
You enjoy these costumey affairs
with their pretend puddings
and freedom from counting syllables . . .
It's all theater, yes? . . . well, maybe not
but we won't know until the credits scroll
and critics email their reviews
to odysseyites waiting to board . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek


Thursday, May 16, 2024

Screen Dump 761

You recall Anne Carson on swimming:
. . . smoothing out the strokes in water filled with anxieties:
You can fail it with each stroke.
What does that mean, fail it? . . .
The poet, John Ashbery, blocked, envisioned
three empty oblong boxes to fill with words . . .
He dipped into The Cloud of Unknowing . . .
You like this idea and decide to try it . . .
filling a container with words
and whipping them into a poem . . .
Finding your way in a forest of well-crafted similes . . .
the rationales we muster . . .
What are you talking about? . . .
You know, to pass muster . . .
But is it that easy? . . .
No, not easy, there are huge holes . . .
yes, holes, that could trip you up
so that you'd have to start over again . . . Sisyphean . . . 
especially now, with the final station coming into view . . .
Nonetheless, . . .

Leila Forés


Wednesday, May 15, 2024

Screen Dump 760

Illusory at best, yes? . . .
This freedom of treading the remains of the day
caressing costumes
pocketing smiles
not unlike a silent film
where the audience can see what the actors cannot . . .
Gawking at the exhibit
within the resilience of a gift shop
an oasis ensconced in the rude . . .
later mapping the yellow brick road
perhaps indefinitely
noting the binge of history
as a way to memorialize your having been here . . .
convincing the watcher at the gate that your words
are suitcased and ready for a weekend getaway . . .

Leila Forés


Monday, May 13, 2024

Screen Dump 759

As if at one remove . . . transcribing
the moment to moment with reverse innuendo . . .
a reason for everything
a reason for the body
a reason for the body of the other . . .
Squeezing through an eastern window
the process beginning years ago
adding language's decrepitude to the mix
of polishing a lens . . . a lens to better see . . .
To better see what? . . .
To better see anything . . . everything . . .
and look, there's even room for more . . .
Do you expect the end as predicted? . . .
howling through a nor'easter
(kidding, but how about if it were) . . .
then struggling to get the words right . . . 
another backstory arriving on the 1:05
with conspicuous palettes to color whatever 'scapes
you have prepared a pitch for . . .

Leila Forés


 




Friday, May 10, 2024

 Screen Dump 86

(reposted from Wednesday, June 11, 2014)

You enter a room . . . forget why . . . read . . . then not . . .
The dumbness of the day . . .
of putting one word in front of the other
of putting your hands in your pockets
of putting your hands in their pockets . . .
The intimation of intimacy . . .
of finding someone's clothes in your closet
of finding someone on the other side of the bed . . .
Have you forgotten about the tickets . . .
the quart of milk . . . low-fat . . .
the gestures . . . out of balance . . . of yet another day? . . .

The loneliness of long distance runners . . .
the scent of green filling your nostrils . . .
You can't wait . . . to tell someone . . .
To re-string the instrument . . . unplayed for far too long . . .
A question of sooner or later . . .
Your own wish to become a blankness . . . forestalled . . .

Saskia de Brauw

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Screen Dump 758

You practice your lines in a two-way mirror
plagiarizing last night's notes
ghosts escaping into the semantic other
balancing tongues
at least believing such
that this is the way you have learned
to manage the world . . .
to manage you in the world . . .
Something will come undone . . .
You will then fondle happy moments
lipsyncing the middle of a chapter
from your childhood's diorama
carried along by the current . . .
your grocery list sheepishly revealing the answer 
to a question you have yet to ask . . .
the neighborhood's scammed
as odysseyites fill their foreigns with ancient myths . . .

Kate Barry




Thursday, May 2, 2024

Screen Dump 757

Your earlier self inhabits the body . . .
A trolley on a back street searches for passengers
who were meant to be elsewhere . . .
You'd better not hear me say that! . . .
the weird aftertaste when you at least tried . . .
then the green of a standin
asleep in the other room . . .
Yes, perhaps the endgame
which if nothing else will stoke the confusion . . .
Someone will be kicked to the curb
before the overflow is reckoned with
and rendered inconsequential . . .
You began the conversation on a positive note . . .
a concert A? . . .
yes, that's it, you said, recognizing
the ramifications of a lost lyric
in the early morning, no, no, not that,
it wasn't that, I'm sure . . .
It's not about making the cut
the call and response . . . that sort of thing
reconfigured from audio files
dropped off at a transfer station . . .
It's about a musical suite in a stand of pines . . .
Can you imagine the confusion
of a left turn . . . then another . . . and another? . . .
Nervous motion, head jerks, tics, shouts . . .
The sinister recording of happenstance
followed by a rewind, a retelling . . .

Eva Torkarchuk



Monday, April 22, 2024

Screen Dump 756

Recall the chef you went to high school with
deboning your salmon steak
while in an antechamber
a one-nighter riffed on a Fender? . . .
You wanted so much for it to be . . .
The deck is stacked but you know that . . .
Veganism? . . . OK, veganism . . .
There's loneliness in acceptance, yes? . . .
The time your pickup broke down
leaving you stranded in nowhereland
only to be dropped off at a subway stop
staring at the third rail
as if onlookers refused the magic
of your harmless costume . . .
And later at the bus stop
where rehearsals got out of hand
and the day became a graphic novel
in a strange tongue . . .
You knew this but continued your renderings
rubbing your hands together between your legs as if . . .
As if, what? . . . As if the director would call a reshoot? . . .
Take a moment to close read your journal
then return to the diorama of your neighborhood . . .
Forget inevitability . . .

Jan Scholz


Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Screen Dump 755

You're taking a line for a walk
to capture the cherry blossoms along the River Styx . . .
It's a day in someone's life, yes? . . .
The someone who was promised this but given that . . .
How unlikely . . .
Then the excitement of the roles you took on
after the barman's Last Call
bloating your Little Black Book
with fingerprints from your tweens . . .
You were dusted . . . and sent home . . .
Your Hokas make the unseen seen
with canned images from the produce section
of the neighborhood Hannaford . . .
Plans to repair the fence
trampled by wolves in sheeps' clothing
en route to grandma's
await the results of COVID testing . . .
The director of Netflix's Ripley
refuses to believe it . . . or not . . .
There once was a time . . . you suppose . . .
 




Monday, April 8, 2024

Screen Dump 754

You've become enamored of the invisible,
the mystery of entanglements . . .  
It's not so much the unknown,
it's the excitement
of being seduced by the moment,
the feeling of engagement, a shared journey . . .
The sloop of your dreams, drifting . . .
This performative feeling about writing . . .
that it's not set in stone . . .
that it's not closed down, not done . . . never done . . .
is good! . . .
You wake to an openness . . .
a blank page, an empty canvas . . .
And, no, it's not too late
to resume the close reading of your autofiction . . .
to experience deconstruction . . .
A bookstore materializes long enough
for you to buy your book, which isn't for sale . . .
Someone chimes in with sequencing is arbitrary . . .
Where does that fit in? . . .
Nothing wrong with being inquisitive . . .
Better than being aggressive or defensive, yes? . . .
The slippery slope of misinterpretation? . . .
of misunderstanding? . . .
The time left is now . . .
your experimental film . . . infinitely looped . . .

The Turin Horse (2011)




Sunday, April 7, 2024

Screen Dump 753

A  Polaroid of young people at a beach
and the tale of the white Donald Duck tank suit
dripping with the full catastrophe begins . . .
A return to the days of then
soundtracked by 45s
the carefree exchange of goods and services
Jerry's Long Strange Trip . . .
high heels clicking on a 4 AM sidewalk
following an n of 2 or 3 or 4 . . .
all legs and arms and hair and words
streams flooded with binge
when . . . fanfare, please . . . a bread truck
rolls onto the scene
with Henry Miller at the wheel
Can I give you a lift? . . .
so you climb on
for yet another ride
costumes aplenty
experiences aplenty
memories aplenty . . .
Regrets? . . . A few . . . You too? . . .
La-di-da, la-di-da, la, la . . . à la Annie Hall . . .
years later . . . an ice storm cometh . . .
its outage an insult to the Age of Crocs . . .
The world teeters on the edge
of Hawking's uninhabitable . . .
yoked to this and that . . . this and that . . .
and your hand . . . their hand . . . a full house . . .

Antonio Palmerini


Monday, April 1, 2024

30 days . . . 30 poets . . . 30 poems . . .

Rensselaerville Library's Eighth Annual Poem-A-Day Project
celebrates National Poetry Month
with a new poem by a local poet each day for April’s 30 days.
With this year’s entries, PAD will have showcased
240 poems by 136 poets.
Stop by PADYES for your daily poetry fix!

Saturday, March 30, 2024

Screen Dump 752

You’re inventorying defining moments, trying to decide which one to include in your proposal for grant money to mount your play which you haven’t begun to write, so you're like, This may be a defining moment, with feet entering the five and dime from your childhood, drawn from a linebook by the director of that over-the-top production where everyone was fitted with a body double to stand in when excitement paled, but now with the defining moment head-butting, you turn to noone and begin improvising a selection of Beckettian anecdotes because, just because, you're in the mood to name-drop . . .

Billie Whitelaw in Samuel Beckett's Footfalls (1984)


Thursday, March 28, 2024

Screen Dump 751

This is where the metaphor gets a little screwy
with you playing the part . . . whatever the part may be . . .
knowing that observing the inconspicuous
is your forte . . .
Let's start with an invisible person
sampling poutine at a diner . . .
They leave their cell phone at a bakery
with a baguette and stories to tell . . .
Are they a tourist? . . . Maybe later . . .
Cut to a lump of clay shape-shifting . . .
toggling the fourth wall as if a gift horse's mouth . . .
Are you OK with the vegetables in your garden? . . .
Let your family know . . .
This is important . . .
Family relationships are well worth
their autofictitious melodramas . . .
Think Tolstoy . . .
Everyone thinks about changing the world
and no one thinks about changing themselves . . .
How this came to this is well worth the time
it took for you to open the door to an unknown sound . . .
A cellist in the woods works through a Bach sarabande . . .

Antonio Palmerini


Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Screen Dump 750

A draft of a manuscript is being read aloud
by a voice from the air . . .
Crows mock crows . . .
You enter the scene idiosyncratically loose
in bib overalls and Mucks
approaching as if in the middle of a paper spree . . .
An unshapely tuft of something begins . . .
It's all about dreamscapes
in Rothkovian colorways . . .
The mist . . . as written, yes? . . .
but why this consequence by an unknown? . . .
I mean you could have just as easily engaged
with the cameras rolling . . . as discussed . . .
I'm not sure you're ready to apply the rules
of present tense . . . when the color of time being
is finished anyway . . . staying out beyond curfew . . .
of course you remember that day
on the street when the rightful owner
emerged from a late-model SUV
and began interviewing you for the next installment . . .

Federica Putelli



Thursday, March 21, 2024

Screen Dump 749

You sport incompletion at an archaeological dig
with Etruscan vases and dental instruments
playing the part with players playing root canals
costumed as shattered visages . . .
The lone and level sands pull out into traffic . . .
You disappear into a labyrinth of words
but manage to recite your way out
with No coward soul is mine by Emily Brontë
whose disregard for convention
makes for an enjoyable trek
across the Yorkshire moors of someone's dreamscape . . .

Leila Forés


Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Screen Dump 748

You concede a strange bunch of circumstances
abutting a consolation of sorts
nothing to complain about . . . yet
but someone's interior monologue is about to sound . . .
It could be UPS
in the guise of medievalism or innuendo . . .
You're tizzied over an early arrival . . .
Try not to get hammered again . . . there's no need . . .
not that there ever was . . . at least according to the transcript . . .
It could be just what the doctor ordered
not unlike when your development was muted
and you were on your clovenly way . . .

Antonio Palmerini


Monday, March 18, 2024

Screen Dump 747

Your rhyming dictionary is off the grid
cluttered with words
you meant to Uber . . .
Buybackers stream . . . yet another example
of wardrobe anxiety from your out-and-about days
of celebrity passcodes . . .
This will begin . . . and this too will begin . . .
dreamscapes overshadowing your vintage items . . .
Regressing to some well-worn route
leading to a floor-through apartment
filled with the clarity of your mirror image
warms on the back burner . . .
Nothing is ready for you . . .
Nothing will be ready for you . . .
Appointments are backed into double wides . . .
This is not new . . . consolation prizes
leak language barriers . . . a throwback to the days
you shopped for muffled noises
only to be disappointed by more days of exceptions . . .
or expectations, whatever . . .

Antonio Palmerini


Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Screen Dump  746

Your costume mishap is a trailer park
and the horses in Patti Smith's
debut studio album are having none of it . . .
eating and drinking their shortlisted lives
in the orchard that went viral
while you studied your reflection
in a glass bead game not unlike Ahab's
he's dead but he beckons . . .
And here comes everybody's electronic music
with Moby whose middle name is Melville . . .

Patti Smith


Friday, March 8, 2024

Screen Dump 745

And now you're cutting and pasting . . .
exiting through the gift shop
with Billie Eilish's What Was I Made For? . . .
An uncertainty about how to live? . . .
A turning like the turning of the seasons? . . .
An image of a face from long ago
but the entanglement is like a train
leaving a station recalled
for a phrase rethought . . .
Enough to cross the bridge
with street cred and sky-high interest rate . . .
Not that you haven't been warned . . .
It's the unremitting arrogance
of a violist da gamba stopping by woods
on a snowy evening quoting from
a remaindered copy of How Should a Person Be? . . .

Leila Forés


Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Screen Dump 744

The tiresome bobbing and weaving
obliterate the string of pearl days
basking in the unseasonable 50s . . .
What you thought you heard
is what you heard . . . at least
according to hearsay . . .
Emptying a bottle of invisible ink
to the Big Pharma of resolution
is an AI monologue composed
not from images but from words . . .
Objections disallowed by dissonance, yes? . . .
How can masterworks survive
in this forensic undercurrent? . . .
A din drifts in from the back room
where pleas are bargained
before headlining virtual tabloids . . .
Your lines riskng enjambment
will doubtless make the six o'clock news . . .

Leila Forés



Friday, March 1, 2024

Screen Dump 743

Lately you've been lapse . . . and why is that? . . .
The intricacies of intimacy
with you elsewhere retooling your philosophy . . .
Nietzsche's We have art so we don't die of reality? . . .
Is that it? . . . OK, I'll play along
with the casual dress code
but now what? . . . now you're complaining
because you're telling me
that complaining kickstarts creating
and isn't that what we're all about? . . .
Like listening to someone's words
as if on the noisy soundstage of a silent film
or listening to a serial open mic reader
whose words supply a different narrative
every time someone texts
or listening to your own words
dress-coded for undertow with boxy takeaway . . .
Illusory, perhaps? . . .
Reupping with the help of an intimacy coach should do it . . .

Leila Forés


Thursday, February 29, 2024

Screen Dump 742

Thinking a reshoot of the end game
is one way to pass this late season snowstorm . . .
The hiking paths wait . . .
This pincushiony dynamic is offputting
to say the least . . . it can't help but raise a flag
to the 365 days of summer . . .
It's something to think about, I suppose,
especially when considering footwear
and the miles and lines to be traversed . . .
I hate to remind you but those cyberdays
keep coming back, their moves color-coded
for easy turnstiling . . . and more . . .
Flat screens are a turn on . . .
Reminds me of Miles cranking out however many hits
to fulfill his contract and join Columbia . . .

Leila Forés


Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Screen Dump 741

You're turning the room inside out
looking for the missing link
you forgot to include in your email . . .
Rhode Island Reds cluck news feeds . . .
the regulated symbol in art
smearing your dreamscape lakeside
with the cinematography grammatical
to showcase your outré demeanor . . .
It's nothing . . . really, this imagining
as if one were willing to retreat
to a safer pop-up monastically . . .
even with everything curated, yes? . . .

Antonio Palmerini


Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Screen Dump 740

You're collapsing the story . . . but why? . . .
Why this segue into alienation
with voices at the back door? . . .
No, not gallows humor, not just yet . . .
You have come too far to fear the end . . .
of course, it's all about coming
at the drama from a distance
all stops pulled out
the perspective just that
and, what, you're trying to reel it in? . . .
You do recall the reshoot
after several lines had been cut
leaving you at loose ends, yes? . . .
a kind of detachment
even about the most intimate of details
fanning out like a stacked deck of cards
with the magician asking you to pick one . . .
There's more to it, sure, but let's not, not now . . .

Antonio Palmerini