Disordered Interiors

. . . the most tangential clues could become brutally relevant.
          - Annie Ernaux

Your feeble metric yielded far too many false positives.
Really? Just how many are far too many?

And the straight line from x to y was returned unopened.
Of course, the semioticians were all ears.

I had a great time, but then, night fell.
Slow down, I'm trying to take notes.

Click Automatic Writing
and you'll be sailing away with your own true love.

Dylan, yes?
It doesn't jibe well with the course (select one):

a. You signed up for
b. You set for yourself.

Stop, already, with the parenthetical stuff.
Please, continue:

OK, we drove through darkness; she wearing glasses.
I was having a conversation with myself.

We ended up sitting on the floor, discussing facades.
And this was good, yes?

I remember her eyes, scanning the lines to the next scene.
I pulled out a three-ring binder

and began jotting down images.
Regrets climbed into my pockets.

For what?
Skipping ahead, channel surfing, the deck's changing milieu.

More hair splitting!
Not in a bad way, though.

Some, by the way, have been bronzed.
I tried to categorize incidentals despite their squirming.

Tell me, do you  enjoy being categorized?
I'm sorry, but it's a kneejerk.

And then?
I dropped out, along with those memorializing the moment.

Aleksandr Rodchenko

Posthumous

You've begun to feel temporary -
your dreams of the future
your arguments with the past
bent harmonica reeds
asleep in the closet
the tune out of tune.
You've joined the ranks of ordinary, confused adults
bottlenecking checkout lines
brown-bagging lunch
doing however many reps at the gym.
Has anyone noticed?
This is what it's all about, yes?
Your car leaves the scene of an accident.
You follow suit
reconstructing moments
with the Erector Set
you picked up at a garage sale
parts unknown.
Your son/daughter will graduate
and assume the position.
And your aging parents?
They've already passed,
their cat mingling daily with onlookers
lifting his/her head
to meet their questions.
Your present is tense, the sun offline.

Francesca Woodman

Overwritten

. . . and so to survive, they'd need to forget.
          - Lawrence Raab

You revisit the memories
knowing that soon some will be overwritten.
Permanently deleted.
Several refuse to join the lineup.
Others waffle.
A long ball into the right field bleachers
the runners advancing
too late now to rethink the gameplan.
You too had to be dragged in here
by the scruff of the neck
pockets turned out, shoes and socks removed,
trying to buy time, incoherent.
And then, of course, the room you pretend doesn't exist.
Sorry, but the title has been reworked.
The scene rewritten.
Someone had to do it, yes?

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Dénouement

Love's mysteries in souls do grow.
          - Seamus Heaney

You connect the dots, ignoring the numbers,

and find a topography of damage,

the breakdown lane scattered with shattered dreams,
recognizable fragments littering the culvert.

You begin counting backwards from 100

as your mother suggested years ago
intimidated by the absence of footholds
yet eager to move on.
Are you happy with whom you've become?
With the self forged by past events?
You're not one to look back.

You grab your backpack, leave your cell,

and begin the trek, mindful of the signposts

for love, for betrayal, for the bagpipes' eerie call.
The voices in your head continue.

Albrecht Dürer

Woman XX

I google her and watch
the hits scroll.
She tickets me
for overtime
then removes
her uniform and gloves
which inflate
to cartoonish proportion.
They squeeze me
out of the room
as she enters the bath
where her nipples sparkle
like uncut stars.

Life as Film Preservationist

Moments with lost silents push you into deep pockets,
the bucket list morphing into indecipherables:
the menacing collage, the porosity of stalked time.
The rate of polymer degradation increases faster than you thought
but the intrigue locks you into a playpen of dreams.
Street vendors stacked in real-time
hawk claustrophobic incidentals, itching to be inventoried.
So what's a little queasiness?
This is what you wanted, yes?
Would you rather something else? I doubt it.
How then the pharmaceuticals?
The speech patterns which continue to tantalize?
Can you wait out the so-called trademarked expert
downsized to a handicap parking space?
The morning paper arrives as rehearsed.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Arriving at the Atocha Station

Your naiveté colors the faces of stand-ins
insinuating themselves into your beautiful life -

a life of free weights and free passes
a life tailored to mobile devices and mobile homes

a life for the tongues of videographers
advancing through the contours of time.

Do you really believe everything you've heard
about profound experiences

or is this yet another seduction of those
who continue to rummage among sinkholes

searching for the equivalent of happiness?
I’ve heard you threw yourself

at the Speaker of the House of Mirth,
who then favorited you, taking care to dislodge

his/her wedding band as a precaution
against discovery by clingers and clangers

slated to appear as footnotes
on thin plates of aluminum earmarked for museums.

He/she will remain shameless.
Your next feature has been deleted

to protect random somnambulists stuck in traffic.
A wind-up toy will be the innocent bystander.

Duplicity

Again, you've misplaced your words, dialed 911, and were added to the queue. Irregularities gather beneath your window, bearing moments, however improbable. The game of chance calls. You try to figure the odds this time before jumping in but hubris keeps knocking down the house of cards. Your request to be among the favored few will be submitted and ignored. Due to a lack of interest, stanzas have been deleted. There is no future tense. Can there be loss without gain?

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Until Nothing Is Left

. . . as longing fades until nothing is left of it.
          - Mark Strand

Images flood the page.
You hold an hourglass up to the moon.
The dailies begin.
Your eyes fill
with colors, and costumes, and angularities,
touch just out of reach,
the final scene,
you turning away.
Not fair.
And you thought it would be?
You do remember your entrance, yes?
Getting clobbered
with what you thought would never happen?
You had a copy of the script?
You knew your lines?
Hadn't we rehearsed the scene
gone over the details
made changes
discussed the incidentals
the ultimatum?
What ultimatum? There was no ultimatum.
Am I confusing you with someone else?

Saturn Overcome by Hope, Love, Beauty  by Simon Vouet