Intact at Daybreak

Yet we insist that life is full of happy chance.
          - Lyn Hejinian

You run into him/her in a parking lot.
Words tumble out, collide.
Screens refresh. Images avalanche.
The pain of updates.
Later you escape to Netflix,
before descending into a maelstrom.
Again, you can't believe what's happened.
What's happening again.
Too much at stake?
You had trouble last time, yes?
Why put yourself through this?
Why go there?
The honesty? The openness? The honesty of openness?
Surely, you can conjure a better reason.
Something more palatable with . . . ?
With what? The heart as lonely hunter?
Crack the window, will you please,
it's getting a bit stuffy.
Fortunately, they will be here shortly
with gossip from the four corners.
Irrelevant stuff, most likely, but therapeutic
when you're down and out
to your last roll of paper towels.

Francesca Woodman

A Night at the Opera

Aida opens with questions about the king salmon baked in rock salt with wild fennel gratin, and about the out-of-towners arriving by tram, a bit late, perhaps, but so what?, her angularity a stop sign, a natural for window shopping, open mics, shy interludes, late-night walks - a bit of fabric held between fingertips, watching movies together as one, hiding behind a spectrum of proclivities, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. The pit crew sporting Desert Storm footwear and J.Crew blazers - What's with that? - demands special accommodations for members of their extended tribe entering stage left with picnic baskets and perfect bound programs wet with autographs and Venetian doodles, tuning out the world, again, and again, and again, bathed in the cool breeze of this late summer evening. The lights flicker. Valets exchange glances. The monitor lapses into a display of stock quotes, the audience, lost without translation, carried aloft by mellifluous arias in the original.

A Night at the Opera (1935)

Day by Day

Your flights of fantasy nosedive into three squares which you concede is an odd number for the health-conscious. Gym rats continue to derail your train-of-thought with offers of sidebars and makeovers and junkets. You have been carved out and readied for the last coat. There's nothing to do but wait tables. Your failure to make eye contact with the old neighborhood has raised concerns about your suitability as a soulmate. The ball is at the top of the pole. The track is clear.  The conductor raises his baton. The first movement begins. You are on your way.

Dancing on the Roof

You sleep with jealousy and run red lights
bronzing conjugations of fornicate
trying to give the impression of laughing through intersections.
Scribbles aside you paddle to the middle
and sketch the shoreline.
The sun sits between timeouts.
It's all about staying the moment
finding a script with starting blocks tailor-made
then moving online for subtleties.
You got rid of most of her at the transfer station.
But some things are difficult to part with, yes?
Sticking to your fingertips
when a storm approaches for example.
Seeing them in your rearview mirror.
And now, she's dancing on the roof
the angle making it impossible for you to let go.

Andy Hartmark

Begin Again

Reconstruct your mud hut with notes from a concerto.
Philip Glass?
Yes, you like his style his style his style.
A quick recap?
I think not. The sun has moved, and left no forwarding address.
Of course, we can examine the damage
but that won't change anything.
You've been relegated to imitations of life.
This is where we're at, my friend.
It's called moving on.
You've got the U-Haul and the shepherd's  pie
and enough Willy Lomans to fill Ebbets Field.
But it was a good day in Flatbush, yes?
You Are There was being shot.
With Walter?
Navigators had been flown in to reconfigure watering holes.
Back to Nature placards everywhere.
Marilyn kicking a soccer ball.
And you thumbing a ride to the next Station of the Cross.
Wait, you're mixing metaphors.
OK, so I mix metaphors. Could be Bensonhurst.
You spend your days in an adjoining room,
courting free associations.
Hopefully, getting my bearings.
I try to avoid that usage.
Irrelevant, as far as the polloi are concerned, Your Honor.
The question remains, just how far?
I'm way off the beaten track, wherever that it.
But that's what we want, yes?
All the way from Flatbush to the Pine Bush to the Pine Barrens.
And then some?
Yes, you'll find yourself within every evergreen.
Will I know it's me?
Probably not, but keep moving and they will come.

Ebbets Field Opening Day 1913

John of the Dear Johns

The scene opens with you
popping out of the wings
costumed, quixotic,
rarin' to go
to the ends of the earth,
the four corners,
the wherever
to do the thing right this time

and for all time
as scripted, of course,
amanuenses readying their quills
to capture the permutations
and combinations
of an intimacy
that will become
a matter of public record.

You have been feted
and called sexy man.
You are the current placeholder,
your predecessors jettisoned.
It is tomorrow, yes?
The sun has come out.
You have bet your bottom dollar
without a tip sheet.

Alcandre and Amanuensis

The Coordinates of a Move

Undaunted, the U-Haul speaks volumes.
Have you been here before?
Your appearance bodes well for the extended forecast.
Were there enough corrugations
to keep the pachyderms occupied for the duration?
The shore can be therapeutic, yes?
Especially the white sand tickling your piggies.
It's not just that though.
There's something else, something I can't put my finger on.
This has been happening a lot lately,
and I fear it may become par for the course.
Bette Davis was one; there have been others
but she nailed it, and it's stood.
Did you think you could forestall the inevitable?

Bette Davis

Woman XXVII

She opens with a quote
closes with someone else
uses a compass
to stay en pointe.
I flip through my Rolodex
for her stats.
My paradigm shifts
into overdrive.

A Room (of One's Own) with a View

I remember the cadaverous approach to happiness
and something about a Gold Coin or Golden Coin
or Man with a Golden Arm.
The scene with the last supper was not the first.
Foodies! Always foodies - thinking a world
of impastos and gouaches, a world
where mistakes can be sent back to the kitchen.
These were a few of my favorite things:
John Coltrane at the Village Gate:
BE: Before eBay and confusion
and scads of DVDs coloring the silence
of conversations with (significant) others.
Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes,
the air salty at the outermost house,
the Pilgrim Monument's 100th.
Replaying the obvious for the off-center crowd.
And, of course, the scripts, always the scripts -
to consider to edit to create
grounded in small (under 100 notes) electronic compositions,
a few improvised or composed on the fly.

Noodling on Bamboo

August, and blackberries
the green wood thick
with yellow jacket,
Japanese beetle, horse fly, toad.
Deeper, deer and fox
and coydog.
Deeper still, bear.
Li Po here too
wind from pine trees trickling
on his bare head. Joy
in the mailbox I replaced, and
in the tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley,
and in this finicky piece of bamboo.