The Beauty of the Null

Everything I know is from a book.
          - Joshua Mehigan

You're juggling impressions, trying to make it home
before someone asks you a question.
Even the guy in the 7-Eleven looked ready.
And where were you when you caved?
You resolve to study epistemology,
especially now with the neighborhood Velcro'd
to detractions. Ladies and gentlemen,
boys and girls, children of all ages.
Yes? Was there a message in that?
Something we could latch onto perhaps?
Parlay into a vacaciones during the null center
of the holiday stream when most wade in
and are carried along by current events?
I suppose we could take the alternative out for a spin.

Roberto Kusterle

Return Receipt Requested

You take what Lyn Hejinian calls a pathetic leap and land,
surprisingly, on your feet, scattering newly-fallen leaves,

the scene soundtracked by Giacinto Scelsi
who was here, there, and back. Your fortune cookie

has promised smooth sailing. Just do it! Savor the coziness.
Know, however, that breakdowns are inevitable,

and acceleration will lose its glamour.
Mousing the future, too, will eventually become tiresome,

even as the options swell, and, in what seems a nanosecond,
you will be returned with blank pages to the gated community.

Ivona, Princess of Burgundia (Opole Puppet Theater)

On the Street (Where You Live?)

Next time I'll rehearse more, dissect my lines, diagram them, as I did decades ago for my Latin teacher, a young woman in full habit, who held me in thrall: You've got to change your evil ways, bay-beh. I never got there, and never would, which demonstrates something, I guess. Oh, by the way, I was riveted by the immersion and wherewithal of your coveralls as you mobilized yourself to meet winter, which will doubtless arrive amid a volley of head butts, attempting to escort you into oblivion, not unlike the killer whales on last night's Animal Planet, who took out a gray whale and her calf in full view of boatloads of whale watchers stunned by the realization - as professed by, among others, the late Stephen Jay Gould whose student evaluations at Harvard reputedly proclaimed: He knows everything about everything! - that the world of the wild is not a peaceable, ethical kingdom.

The Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks

A Piece of Nothing

That's all there was to it. No more than a solemn waking to brevity.
          - Mark Strand

And then, again, you decide to look at the sketches of domes in cities you've never visited, and probably never will, the domes having insinuated themselves into your reading and into your life. You don't even know the names of the cities and towns but they're pleasant to look at, and spark images of travel. There are moments when the armchair you're sitting in by the window overlooking the park seems to lift off and float above the canals in the cities. You strike up conversations with strangers in languages you don't even know. This could be a wish, or a piece of nothing, connecting you to the world.

Some Disenchanted Evening

Another late night of books
and you slip on a stanza
spilling the words you've been squirreling away
for your next encounter.
The assignment calls for recommendations
that can be folded into your disembodied days
of garden salads, protein shakes, vitamins.
Do you have the wherewithal
to recommence your life
as artifact, clattering along rooftops,
peering into windows,
scrambling to hide emails under the rug?
There are benefits, of course,
as spelled out in the attached addenda.

Ivona, Princess of Burgundia (Opole Puppet Theater)

With Airtime Limited

But no one can prove that your life means anything either: on a good day you feel able to keep on living it, . . . following a plan when a plan seems to fit, but otherwise making it up as you go.
          - Stephen Burt

Backing into a parking space, half-smiling, earwormed,
the dime-store alchemy with its godless sneer
playing hide-and-seek in the darkening, overgrown garden,
you decide to break the mold, breathe,
the small script saying something about sincerity.
Intimidations aside, it couldn't have been avoided.
Of course, once you stepped into the ring,
the bell sounded the beginning of the round,
and before you knew it, you were rocked by a left,
glancing above the timekeeper's toupee
for a clue to the full catastrophe: the ride over,
backpacks unpacked and returned to the back room.
This time there wasn't time to rehearse.
This time the experience was framed, matted,
and on the street in a wrinkle to be picked over
by disinterested parties who scattered
the unwanted, while, all the while,
the mimeograph machine, posing new questions,
awaiting the verdict, commiserated with sleight-of-handers,
who, ill-advised, convinced you
that this was not what you had paid for.

Rosalind Solomon

Degrees of Freedom

Emails bottleneck at the back door
dangling profiles and memory hooks and terms of endearment
setting off smoke detectors
with lines like You are always on my mind
shifting irresistibly in Aeron ergonomic chairs
(permanent at MoMA)
the meter clicking off degrees of freedom
between you and whomever
your knees weak from the algorithm
you've been tweaking from the get-go.
Everyone has flirt options
especially when cloud banks dictate seasonal rates
and we riffle through closets for long sleeves
only to default to comforters.
The plot thickens.
Spare me the cliches, please!
I'm Kindling into you and your root cellar.
Do we have enough food and drink to weather the weekend?
To weather the sparring?
Bassoonists insinuate themselves into my dreams
retreating into anonymity when I look behind the curtain
and find your handwritten notes.
The drama of reading not unlike puppetry.
Pulling the strings, yes?
Where will you be on the night of October 12th, 201_?
The loneliness of the high seas.
And of course Job qua Ishmael:
I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

Ivona, Princess of Burgundia (Opole Puppet Theater)

Woman XXVIII

Slam-dunked
by her ___*
I am struck speechless
unable to call foul.

*aureole/beauty/glare/indifference/look/smile/words

Joyce Tenneson

Moving

We all have reasons for moving.
          - Mark Strand

No, no, don't lose yourself in the rear window.
Keep moving.
Isn't that what Patti Smith said?
Rewrite the script
run it past a few street corners
and you'll find yourself in the produce section
happy as a parking meter.
Maybe it was Bob Dylan.
I'm sure it was one of those two.

Back to You

You begin telling a funny story then stop
insisting your delivery is off a few cents
as if you were comparing musical pitches.
You assume tomorrow will arrive as scheduled
with makeovers and callbacks and returns.
Not unlike most of us, yes?
Bring the car around, it's time.
Shall we continue into the second stanza
which was left flopping around on the wet sand?
I can't believe it's you
but in fact it is
looking small yet provocative
for the part you've chosen from scraps of paper
blowing around the gazebo.
There was a time. . . .
Forget it. That was back when timetables
ran the show and the button
signifying the next move
was visible to all, even those in the nosebleed section.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison