Screen Dump 1

If poetry is dead . . . then good.
          - Chelsey Minnis

Your follow-up was detrimental to strung-out marionettes
and you were ticketed for low-tech gaudiness . . .
Please remain online for the entire coupling . . .
You will know the ending before . . .
Of course without interpretation but then this is not something new . . .
I know what you're pinging . . .
You wanted to use collapsible grammar . . . but you sleepwalk . . .
I too would have walked
especially with those whatever they're called . . .
I've heard you were nailed by your therapist for pithy disclosures
and for not being experimental enough . . .
Not to worry . . .
The binary code as cracked by binary poets
isn't all it's cracked up to be . . .
So now you're trafficking in what? . . .
Several have said that you were lavishly costumed
and that your characterization was stop-motion
and that your ars poetica  was off the charts . . .
Third-way scribblers have a way of  rewriting the world as we don't know it . . .
Tick-tock tick-tock . . .

We'll always have Paris, Texas

You've relegated the dogeared script to a siding
and taken to the boards
ready to descend the staircase with your Method-y accent
Rhett's reasonable facsimile pacing the wings.

The wardrobe people are here too
having replaced their needles and threads
with Happy Hours.

It's time to forget your veiny feet

and the mole on your chinny-chin-chin.
It's time for the mad dash through your therapist's ulterior motives.
The Witness Protection Program has been hopscotched to death.

Deborah Turbeville

The Phonetics of Ukuleles: Revamp Three

I would rather have a Gucci bag than a poem.
          - Chelsey Minnis

Too funny is too funny . . .

Stephen Colbert's too funny is too funny . . .
Sometimes . . .
Too funny can turn on you like an angry pit bull . . .
An angry pit bull guarding a grow room . . .

Stephen Colbert can turn on you like an angry pit bull . . .

The ukulele beneath your window . . .
The ukulele player beneath your window . . .
He/she can be too funny . . .
He/she can turn on you like an angry pit bull . . .
Whispering sweet nothings in your bad ear . . .

An angry pit bull playing a ukulele . . . beneath your window . . .
whispering sweet nothings in your bad ear . . .

Or . . . into a cornfield . . .

Greengrocers in a cornfield with a television crew . . .
A mini-series . . . or docudrama . . . or ukulele . . .

A docudrama about a cornfield of ukuleles . . .

Too funny is too funny . . .
Living life at a remove . . .
Too funny . . .
A smartphone . . .
A smartphone with spinning wheels . . .
A smartphone with spinning wheels can turn on you . . .

Living life at a remove from smartphones that can turn on you . . .

Equal equals too funny . . .

You can do this . . . or . . . you can do that . . . is too funny . . .

Trying to hold it together . . .
Trying to let it go . . .
A ukulele player playing Lotto . . .

Trying to live life at a remove while playing Lotto . . .

Trying to do the right thing . . .
Or . . . the wrong thing . . .

Or . . . trying to write a wrong ukulele . . .

Too funny . . .

Tweeting at 11 PM . . .
Ordering takeout on the subway . . .
Ordering takeout on a spinning wheel . . .

Ordering takeout on Wheel of Fortune . . .

Pat Sajak as Stephen Colbert . . .
Too funny . . .
Nothing from nothing is The Twilight Zone . . .

Ordering takeout on a subway . . . in The Twilight Zone . . .

Too funny . . .

Rod Serling as Pat Sajak as Stephen Colbert . . .
as an angry pit bull . . . playing the wrong ukulele . . . at 11 PM . . .
in a cornfield . . . beneath your window . . .
in The Twilight Zone . . .

Too funny can be too funny . . .

Bemoaning a Foothold

You try texting but lose the signal.
This usually happens when words bottleneck
which they so often do
when you're driving too fast.
And then there's the whole warm-up thing:
you know, the windup, the pitch
the corner
the cab to the outer reaches
the Nile rerouted
gondoliers on holiday.
Oblong days saturated with polyrhythms.
Back seat drivers who keep GPSing.
The muses step up to the plate
and paint you into a corner.
Did you fail to deliver?
Did you fail to hand in the report on time?
You will not pass Go.
You will not collect $200.
You will be banished to a Draft Folder
to sit there, in a corner, bemoaning a foothold.

Sarolta Ban

The Infatuation of Connections

I paint to figure out how it works.
          - Robert Ryman

You fall asleep watching Scenes from a Marriage (for the third time)
and awaken to a brighter palette:

the confluence of material, brushstroke, support, scale
how music can jack up the spirit

the change in your pocket jingling with memories
the exchange of emails shepherding new worlds.

Running on the fumes of texts makes for an exciting journey.
This time you have read the manual

studied the expressions on their faces
reviewed your notes, practiced survival skills

as suggested by counter staff
at Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks.

They too were familiar with the sketches you shared
and seemed to understand your reasons for trying to get it all down.

Irma Haselberger

Grammarians at the Gate

And I shrugged my shoulders, as people do in novels, but never in real life.
          - Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile

There are too many shrugs here with blank stares.
Too many blanks.
Too many open-ends.
Too many starts and near-starts.
Too many speed traps
for time travelers in search of the elements of style.
The word on the street is a memory.
Several are at a loss.
You remember the kiosk as if it were tomorrow
the paths through the dark wood
the pleasantries exchanged
the counterintuitives costumed as consenting adults.
Cases and tenses.
Introductions.
How to begin.
Where to begin.
When to begin.
How to begin again.
How to sit with Mother Tongue.
The event horizon cluttered with discards.
Wasn't it superfluous to connect with so many so soon?
There are rules and regs for that sort of thing.
The Blah Blah Blahs can stymie you
when you least expect it.
Stick around long enough, and your train of thought will derail.
But the instructions said . . . .
The instructions said nothing, yes?

The Eroticism of Trees

You're transcribing the sounds of late summer: the secrets of trees, their openings, their closings. A breeze catches your skirt, and the eye of an event photographer qua accordionist. He morphs into a sapling, his notes fluttering to the ground.

Martina Hoogland Ivanow

New Salinger Bio Ships!

Voices, then the driving around in circles,
and you on the floor - teletubbying - holding onto your braids
for stability, the ferry wobbling across the River Styx.
You thought you could outfox UPS
but the package arrived
(or at least the torn wrappings would seem to indicate).
You spent the next few hours (which seemed like days)
on the couch, ready to beeline.
At the launch, texts bottlenecked.
Doesn't it seem as if these scenes play out again and again?
An HBO miniseries, perhaps?
No need to convalesce.
Click Accept, and with your credentials and EZPass
you'll be able to sail though tollbooths
disregarding the implied rule of dinner party conversations
that stipulates tone over content.

Reshooting the Penultimate Scene

These things are there.
          - Randolph Henry Ash, Possession

And now you're talking about uncharted territory,
how you can't believe how you feel, how you are bound to get hurt.

In the penultimate scene, Maia, surrounded by butterfly bushes,
runs down the hill and lets go of the note. She will never see it.

Docents clutter the walkway with empty pizza boxes.
Killing the dreamscape seems the only level-headed thing to do,

and you pride yourself on your level-headedness and pragmatism.
At night, cynical about your feelings, you check your messages,

and the secrets strangers have failed to pry open.
Room to room. Room to room.

Why go there?
Think of the momentum of this 18-wheeler when you hit the brakes.