Forgotten Lines

An overturned car at a fork in a road
on the TV in the husk of a 7-Eleven
where I sit near a noisy cooler with crayons
and a blank phonebook:

they are no longer here
no longer anywhere
their identities no longer known.

I draw on the moon and the stars
and visit their neighborhoods
delivering emails to shut-ins.
Their shoes take on different meanings.

A faded curtain in a remote village.

A Mayday unheard.

This ends Act One.

In Act Two, marbles are divided
among the players

one with a cat's eye
filled with the shadows of roads
leading out of town.

The veins on the back of his hand
tell another story
to be serialized on cable.

A stagehand asks for directions
to his high school reunion.

I find myself among strangers
some well-heeled and beautiful
standing in a hallway decorated for Halloween.

They wear masks and are fluent in foreign tongues
their conversations flavored with memories.

Nearby a string quartet tunes their instruments.

The rain has seen this before.
They too will run out of time.

A bell sounds the beginning of the third act:

teachers scramble for their attendance books
littered throughout the building.
Their lesson plans are projected overhead for all to see.
Some hide their eyes.

Hall monitors have their hands full.

I stand alone in the middle of a stage.
I've forgotten my lines.

The other actors exchange phone numbers.

Hero

I’m the hero of the story.
          - Regina Spektor

Someone’s old soft shoe is tapping out a code
in the corner of the room.

How many lines of code to order Thai take-out?
How many lines . . . ? Wait a moment, will you please?

There’s a break in the weather and in this poem.
OK, I'm back.

I  went for a walk along the salted snow-banked roads
listening to the soundtrack from (500) Days of Summer.

I especially like Regina Spektor’s Hero.
I’ve heard she sometimes composes on the kitchen sink.

How many poems have been composed on appliances?

On the head of a pin?

How many in the back seat of a '57 Chevy?

I’ll bet Wikipedians know.

Broom Clean

. . . and the incapacity to live with anyone.
          - Nina Zivancevic

The apostrophe of your face resurfaces
in the foreign category on Netflix
your name missing from the credits
your plans awaiting the ferryman’s text
which appears with the tide.
Too late to tiptoe through the peephole of the capsized vessel.
Too late to re-enter the hall of two-way mirrors
where we cameoed in each other’s fantasy
bookended by bodice rippers
every shape size and persuasion
sandwich boards brandishing positions
straight out of the Kama Sutra.
A missionary! A missionary! -
your voice not unlike a carousel of loosely-fitted conjunctions
its slowly-unfolding symmetry
mimicking the Golden Age of Silent Films
echoed in painful evenings
the river gurgling a perfect fifth to our wailing.
Is this how it ends?

Immense Doorknobs Populate His Dreams

Immense doorknobs continue to populate his dreams
as well as late arrivals
complete with transitional accoutrements
that do nothing but clutter the walk-up.

I’m afraid several of you will be left pondering the moment
as it extricates itself from routine
and tumbles upon us after the fact.
Be sure to pinch your rebate coupons on the way out.

Phoning ahead for reservations won’t help.
Sad, but the so-called perfect evening wasn’t
and has been queued for the playbook.
There’s no telling when things will begin to heat up.

After Hours

A potato-eyed urchin in fierce pajamas
climbs out of the root cellar
festering with the anticipation of an evening with Bach.
We test her finger speed.
Her repertoire includes an excellent rendition
of Home on the Range
which has everyone’s feet tapping
until one of her potato eyes catches sight
of the dumb waiter in the food pantry.
The houselights clot.
The competition begins.
A hush overtakes those shortlisted
for rosining their bows after hours.
I start snapping away like crazy
forgetting that I had forgotten to turn off
the coffee maker in the heat of the morning’s moment.

In the Round

Creased with envy
we thought we were ahead of the curve
laughing at the faces we made
our bent knees
the costumes which gave off an aura of ennui
the plenary indulgences.
We were told to keep track
of our comings and goings
in marble composition tablets
and to plant seeds
in straight lines
several inches apart.
There was enough material for a short story.

Guides to the Unconscious

1
The floaters in my eyes
are shooting stars -
intricate constellations
I can enjoy
while grocery shopping
doing laundry
meditating
on the plight of recyclables.
Friends have suggested
listing them on eBay
as guides
to the unconscious.

2
A Pilates practitioner
on the evening news
recommends
immersion
as a guide to the unconscious.
Lean in to your work.
Break the bottlenecks.
Find a safe harbor
for your button collection.
Embrace unnecessary gestures
if necessary.
Read a book
from cover to cover.
In either direction.

3
Spending a day
on the windowsill
was once thought to be
a fairly reliable guide
to the unconscious.
I had a dream
that Freud wrote
The Interpretation of Dreams
while smoking a cigar
on a windowsill
in Vienna.

4
I’ve started hanging out
with navel oranges
and a belly dancer.
She uses finger foods
as guides to the unconscious.
It’s got me thinking
about shutter speeds
and house salads
and a half-brother
I never had.

5
Eighty-three point five percent
of Americans
reported searching
for guides to the unconscious
last year.
People streaming through turnstiles
half-walking
half-running
trying to avoid
the pitfalls of anagrams,
the loneliness
of buttonholes.
Day after day.
Little warning.

6
I’ve mentioned my interest
in guides to the unconscious
to my co-workers
who seem uninterested
or more interested
in the water spots
on their annotated
coffee mugs.

7
Did you expect this so-called poem
on guides to the unconscious?
Did you expect your croquet balls to vanish
willy-nilly?

But is it realer?

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is
to be master . . . ?”
          - Lewis Carroll

I trip on someone’s mispagination
stumble into the aftermath
and find myself
tumbling down a rabbit hole
CPAs riding shotgun
surrounded by geishas
the whole thing streamed
laced with clips of Umbrian carousels
women on wooden horses
slender downy arms
detached from torsos
stretching for gold rings
their long, lean legs straining
against stirrups
ankles capped with silver
holding me trancelike
my breath tottering on the brink.
I hit the refresh button
escape though a hidden panel of experts
and search for one of those
elongated nudes by the sculptor
whose walking man
set a record at Sotheby’s.
A trombone accompanies the search party
hosted by a woman wearing nothing
but a virtual apron
the theater of her teeth
so white so straight
delivering lines with the precision
of a metronome
perseverating on a checkmate
and determined to act it out in 3D.
I am lost in translation
my imagination
the resident of a double-wide
with high speed Internet access and dish
awaiting spring
and the advent of the buy one get ones.
When I awake
I am wet from top to bottom
my vision double
my knees shaking
stained with grass.
I shake blades from my hair
check the looking glass for evidence
and find an invoice
scribbled with a blunt object
crouching in the hair of my left armpit.

Everyday, Another

Everyday, another:

the mirror with its flat images
its bewilderment
its raucousness

and the memories
ill-formed, ill-fitting
quick to welcome the stranger
at the door:

the door as advent to the trailer park.

A wooden playground
with wooden figures
that move with your thoughts

like the tin figures
on a cardboard stage
from your sixth birthday
controlled by a magnet
at the end of a stick.

You stand in the landscape
of this year's youthful pout
waving a debit card
with the righteousness of Luther
ready to drive a nail
through your collected works
taking you back to the shadows
loitering in your dreams of high school.

How many times have you rechecked your voicemail?

How many times have you rewritten your opening line?

The ventriloquist dummy in your closet
threatens to share your secrets
with the neighborhood hooligans.

You live in the endpapers of books:

your memoirs will soon be published
by the local haberdashery
where a suit of armor waves at you from the window
as you pass -

the same suit of armor you coveted
through your teens
and photographed again and again:

the prints now somehow lost.

How could the clock have struck
so quickly, so loudly, so rudely?
Without warning?
Without so much as a smidgen of remorse?

Word Got Out

That dog is getting on my nerves.
He seems to be texting someone
or at least drumming up business

for the next sideshow attraction
deplaning in the second room on the left.
Watch your step, will you, please?

It's quite nice to be a Chinese take-out
not unlike reeling in a really big one
with twenty-pound test.

Yet another kindred spirit emboldened
to take an early retirement.
The way it's done is theater:

the house lights dim
the strings coax a melodic line
creating a surplus of found nail art

while hard-to-buy-for relatives
accessorized in ways not worth mentioning
blow in on antique cookie cutters.

Ezra in Exile

His conch collection cameoed in Warhol's Sleep.
He worries the acqua alta and is in demand
as an expert witness on pencil shavings.
Retractions fog his windows.
Cantos clutter the corners.
Mornings, with Olga off to the bakery for violin lessons,
he conducts his words
while tabbies skirt the canals singing his lines.
CPAs rethink their numbers
upon hearing his rants.
His blog is blank.
Sundays, he phones his mother
and tells her how much he misses her
potato pancakes and tall tales.
The Coen brothers pester him
for the particulars of his caged life at St. Elizabeth's -
a life spent helping others while pissing them off.
Vendors moor their gondolas outside his palazzo
waiting for him to pass
in cape and broad-brimmed cappello
hawking images, making it new.

Emily Update

There is no Frigate like an eBook
To takes us Lands away

Walking the Cat

He prefers to spend his days lazed
in the stuffy arms of a chair by the window
where he can keep an emerald eye
peeled for caricatures in the street.
His pleasures are unparalleled
though this morning he carried on
about the hot cereal being anything but.
Later, despite the coming snow
he insisted on our usual walk -
the side streets troubled by student drivers
at ten and two, the vacant lot flecked
with white. We stopped for a paper
which pleased him to no end, knowing
it would eventually wind up in his box.
He doesn't seem to mind old news.
On the way home he mentioned
the snow blower which I should have
had serviced in the fall, and his wish
to return to his pastime of compiling lists
of restaurants with take-out sushi
at reasonable prices for friends and acquaintances.
But you know how that goes.

ars poetica (with a small p)

A poem should not mean / But be.
          - Archibald Macleish

Outside, the snowflakes dance a minuet.
Wait a minute.
Do I need outside?
Isn't it implicit?
Outside, the snowflakes.
Inside, a minuet.
The snowflakes minuet.
No! No! Too telegraphic!
Try this.
The waves lap the shoreline.
The shoreline?
How about the shore?
The cat lapping the milk.
A minuet of cats.
And the paperboy?
He too could be pelted with snow.
On the beach?
Yes, on the beach.
In the middle of winter?
Why not?
What about the middle of summer?
What about it?
An evening of minuets.
Outside?
Yes.
Under the stars?
Of course.
The empty parking lot filling with snow.
Tracks.
In the snow?
From the dancers?
Dancing a minuet?
Yes.
Outside?
Yes, outside.
Under the stars?
Maybe.
Implied?
Possibly.
Possibly?
Possibly.
The newspaper is snow-soggy.
I'll speak to the paperboy tomorrow.
Outside?
Wherever.
Whatever.
In the middle of a minuet, if need be.
A paperboy dancing the minuet?
Why not?
As one of the snowflakes?
Yes, as one of the snowflakes.
Wouldn't his legs get cold?
Perhaps.
Are they made of paper?
Of course not.
They're made of snow.
He's one of the dancers.
Of the minuet?
Of the minuet.
The dancers have spent weeks rehearsing.
The minuet?
Yes, the minuet.
And now it's snowing?
Yes, and they're dancing.
The minuet?
Yes, the minuet.
I can see it.
Yes, it'll work.
Outside?
Yes, outside.
Outside, the snowflakes dance a minuet.

Valentine

Over the river and through the woods
to Grandfather's house.
But that was then.
When you believed in magic
and wore heels to bed.

Sienna Miller

Eating a Footlong in the Car on the Way to Ballet

Her older sister’s theatrics following last night’s breakup
segue into a sociology final
which later morphs into an episode of Friends on Facebook
with Scott as placeholder until the next real boyfriend.
Corleone the cat cleans out his Buddha Dome
then spends the rest of the afternoon
eyeballing the antics of the neighborhood beneath his window.
The super in the apartment building
sporting bib overalls and snake
attacks the bathroom’s drain
worries that his name will be listed among the missing
that his bones will be discovered
five years down the road
in a culvert along Route 169 outside Hibbing, Minnesota.
There are afternoons when the backed-up traffic
on Route 20 West is kaleidoscopic
catapulting drivers into Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone
with close-ups of Rod and cigarette at Ithaca
lecturing the wide-eyed on scriptwriting’s secrets
submitted for their approval.
I am Richie Havens’s High Flyin’ Bird
brushing my teeth before heading the few blocks
to a classroom filled with middle schoolers
whose trips to the pencil sharpener on the window sill
to spot the cars waiting for the only light
is their best shot at escape.
Another substitute and I jack up the rear of a housewife’s van
to free it from the stub of a stop sign
it has somehow become impaled on.
Jittery and apologetic she climbs in tugging at her housedress.
Later I pen a note into a permanent record about a kid
whose oblique view of the world 20 years hence
would likely be labeled ADHD
and win him a bag of pharmaceuticals.
I find his scribbles fascinating.
I’m telling my younger daughter
who’s devouring a footlong in the car on the way to ballet
about Woodstock
and how Richie would bar chords
with what appeared to be a lemur’s thumb
reminding me of Uma in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
her long lean legs only partially hidden by a short denim skirt.
Adjusting her iPod, she asks whether it’s true
that everyone there was stoned.

In a Heartbeat

There are far too many options
and having bartered with bargain basement shelvers
you know you can be talked into unwanted purchases.
What’s this?
A new role?
The role of a lifetime?
Enjoy the revamp.
The camaraderie.
Don’t waste time worrying
about providers of on-the-spot coverage.
Change your profile picture, pronto!
Decide which ending you want.
Which melody.
Stop squirming.
Pack your duffel.
You have become part of the equation.
Yes, call someone if you wish.

Respite

Later, with the kids tucked in, we can rearrange
our collection of fortune cookies.
By the way, have you finished reading
what the French call that novel with drawers?

Matching Wits with Strangers

A mother hangs out of a window
calling her son home for a steaming plate of Golumbki.
In an alley, an acquaintance matches wits
with a stranger carrying a shoe-shine kit
while across the street barroom patrons
try to guess each other's weight.
A small boy watches combines trundle across
a yellow sea of caffeine.
Years later a portion of this
will be spun into yarns
by honest-to-goodness cowboys.
Poke around the barn if you think I'm joshing.
You'll find an envelope with the answers
to last year's SATs.

The Dogs in the Trees

The dogs are in the trees again
and they’re barking
waving to their friends
refusing to come down
scratching shedding ordering Chinese
hounding me
to do this
and that.

 

The Mathematician’s Daughter

But what of the cul-de-sac of her childhood?
The slow circling of bases on the dusty diamond,
calculator in hand?
The unraveling of ribbons on warm Saturday afternoons?
Her knack, yes, for movie theaters
and the sheer pagination of her intellect.
Her ability to plumb the depths of bodies in motion
to retrieve artifacts long forgotten
pinning onlookers to the mast with her proofs
as she practiced higher-order equations
on the sweet-smelling turf
under autumn’s orange sky.
Forget as well that she knew by heart
the names of Leibniz’s monads
the mass appeal of transits
the high rise of sorts with the stop sign in front
the vase of freshly-cut delphinium.
I once found her calibrating the pulsating, scratchy music
of stoops, wearing a smile filled with late hours -
hours spent spread-eagled over reams of graph paper
lined with doodles and obscure footnotes
from the sixteenth century -
her first four words as illuminating as ever.
She tried hard to find happiness in coefficients
in the beauty of imaginary numbers
staying the required course despite the odds
instead of shortcutting to the breakfast nook without a word -
an unmade bed, some fast food bristling in the wastebasket
the canned soups in her cupboard
arranged as they were in powers of ten.
In the end, she returned to the lecture hall
where, amid furious note-taking, she had once plotted our future
filling the whiteboard and the air
with intricate drawings of the Interstate at dawn
calculating the logarithmic distance from x to y to z.

Intermezzo

Which reminds me:
where shall we grab a bite?
Is your workout behind you?
Before you know it
the tide will turn
and you’ll be mired
in yet another infinite loop
wearing out your welcome
as she knew you would.

First and Ten

Despite icy roads and temperatures in the teens
I have decided to stream tailgate parties

for Pied Pipers recast as extras
and dispatched as late-night uber-bloggers

blinking the Great eBooks out of town.
My obscurity is on the line but little matter.

The excitement of the snow plow can no longer be ignored.
Sow’s ears can always be reconfigured.

I will be in the driver’s seat on the 50th yard line.

Saturday Morning

. . . she feels the dark / Encroachment of that old catastrophe.
          - Wallace Stevens, Sunday Morning

God’s inner ear tucked into my back pocket
I am my own chorus:
His Master’s Voice (Wikipedia’d, no less!)
atop a building on Broadway in Albany.
Miles Kind of Blue - Here’s your part. Here’s your part. -
springboarding sidemen
into the modal life. I too
am jettisoned into a riff:
Showgirls cluttering the walkup.
Elizabeth Berkley licking a pole in Vegas -
You can call me Versayce!
Joe Eszterhas dabbing a Latina cleaning woman
who stopped in the dessert aisle at Hannaford
on her way home
arms laden with trance
never to return.
A window seat unclaimed.
Tickets! Tickets!
Next Stop Wonderland
its nightlife of cephalopods
trumping Ledger’s Joker: Why so serious?
But where?
The ghosts of Oliver Cromwell and Philly Joe Jones
stretch out, pharmaceuticals and all.
The Book of Silence awaits your every note.
The woman in the dunes of your dreams
enters the ring for the welterweight Sudoku championship
of the lower 48.
Michael (Let’s get ready to rumble!) Buffer at the open mic.
Pomes Penyeach.
Quickly! Before what?
Ah, the neighborhood food co-op:
Too late to reclaim the bargaining chip implanted in my brain.
I grind my own, she says
and proceeds to pour
as the rest of the story unfolds.

Nipper

Why I ignore messages left by the snow ...

Lots of otherwise decent folk lose their balance
and, that's it, they're left standing on the platform.

A star falls from the sky without warning
and brings down the curtain right in the middle.

Would you revisit your former self if you could?

Oscar

A flyer from the neighborhood body shop
touts the usual seasonal fix
for uncooperative dimmer switches.
The path through the woods
is clogged with snowmobilers,
cross-country skiers, snowshoers,
and assorted furry friends
who, not unlike the rest of us,
are trying to squeeze a bit of happiness
out of these gray (grey?) days.
A talking cure cannot be far off.
I realize now that your favorite ending
to the Oscar-Nominated Films you’ve seen
is one of my favorites as well.
Perhaps my all-time favorite.

Bipolarity Among the Ancients

The snow arrives as promised
followed by a pop-up steam locomotive
filled with ancients.
Most are apologists.
The women sport jogbras in cool colors.
I want to be their tour guide
I want to show them around
but not knowing the town
I do nothing.
The ancients are eBayers as well
and continue buying and selling
from the third tier of the tour bus
as it winds its way up and down
the icy, centuries-old roads.
We barely miss being sucked
into a YouTube video
narrated by William of Occam.
He signs my book:
To Tom, Cheers! Bill
an inscription in keeping I guess
with his reputation.
The bus route is dotted
with several strategically placed placards
emblazoned with the caveat:
Choose the hypothesis with the fewest new assumptions.
I like its ring, and jot it down.

From: A History of the World in Four-Line Feeds: Part 18.1

Now what? Now what do we do?
Do you believe everything you’ve heard about him?
About her?
About people in general?

About the Burning Man?
I don’t know.
And where do we go from here?
I mean just check out YouTube.

Provided of course your entity allows streaming videos.
Well, yes, they may allow them but believe you me you’ll be on the clock.
It’s all about time and attendance.
It’s always about time and attendance.

But, hey, I’m nobody, who are you?
I’m your waiter.
Well, it’s about time.
And attendance?

Repetition, the conundrum.
The what?
He had this vision of a woman on the breakers with an umbrella.
It was a scene from a well-known diorama.

Look around the bookstore at your leisure, she said.
She pronounced it lehzure.
Just back from the book tour
he noticed his shins were skinned.

Rotating his hand slightly at the end of the pour
he discovered a spoiler
approaching the station.
The Last Station?

Yes, The Last Station.
Which incidentally is as the Brits would say smahshing.
I’d walk a mile for Helen Mirren.
Actually, more than a mile.

How much more?
Hard to say.
Really!
Cut to the scene of the empty railroad platform, please. Quickly!

Dylan strumming Good car to drive after a war.
Here comes that injunction I warned you about.
I’m sure he’ll skate through it.
With some intractable community service?

I suppose.
As dissected on page 12?
Yes, as dissected on page 12.
And that too,

and three, four, maybe even five extra innings.
No more George, though.
Sad, indeed.
Lots of coverage, yes?

Opening Day is always exciting.
You were there, weren’t you?
At least I thought you were there
brandishing an elephant gun

as if a line had been drawn.
As if a die had been cast.
So we skipped a few parts, so what?
To cut to the chase, so to speak?

I guess.
Wait, you mean like Steve McQueen in Bullit?
Was he cooperative?
As cooperative as Steve could be.

On a good day? With Ali?
Here comes Erich Segal. Ask him.
Act 1 Scene 2. Action!
Slow down!

Did someone interview Hannibal after he crossed the Alps?
Yes, I believe it was Jodie Foster.
One of her texts mentioned something about a summer frock.
I think you’d look good in one.

Reminds me of The Girls in their Summer Dresses.
Which isn’t about girls in their summer dresses!
Why do they do that?
Do what?

The other morning, for example, a flock of birds flew from the trees
with the message It’s never too late.
You’ve been Potter-ized!
What’s a group of vampires called?

Yes, I’ve had my share of vampires.
And German Expressionist films?
And Max Schreck? And Count Orlok?
Yes. Yes. And yes.

Now there’s a classic.
I remember watching it one summer evening
and thinking about a text message I received.
From a girl in a summer dress?

There was nothing outside the text.
Meaning?
Let me back up a bit.
The checkout line has bottlenecked

and I’m thinking about the last line in the romance novel
that floated in over the transom last night:
The moment passed.
Surely, someone will throw a hissy fit.

But what about the fit and finish
of the models rolling into showrooms as we speak?
Is there a lesson to be learned?
So long as it’s value-added.

The famous late-in-the-novella Updikian switch?
The what?
You know, where Ed and Eunice emerge from the pool
to the open mouths of their respective spouses.

So that’s it?
Not necessarily. But that was then.
Yes?  And?
And this is now.