Screen Dump 230

The medievalists in the back carrels are tambourining . . .
fast talking in a dead language
about Intensive Outpatient Programs . . . IOP for short . . .
I've had enough for one day with fancy fonts . . .
I'm not about to jump into anything willy-nilly . . .
Slip on your four or five inch heels
and avail yourself of every nook and cranny . . .
Take the alternate route to Grandmother's . . .
Dickinson's Wheels of Birds . . . await your arrival . . .
I've no idea what I'm waiting for . . . no idea whatsoever . . .
This happens to you, as well, yes? . . .
Call me when it's over . . . we'll ask for seconds . . .
That'll throw some for a loop . . .
dislodging the boredom of board games
with a few tidbits from Wittgenstein . . .
or Whitman . . .
A blind alley . . . for sure . . .
where you choke on one after another? . . .
And you thought it was the expected thing to do? . . .

John Galliano

Screen Dump 229

Into the indescribable . . . as if sliding across a mirrored floor . . .
This . . . your focus . . .
No stranger to Yeats's center cannot hold
you embrace misdirection . . . the futility of bemoaning . . .
The loss . . . of what? . . .
In time, notches accrue . . . the word spreads . . .
The football team . . . out of the huddle . . .
appears as yesterday's super heroes with revisions . . .
You terminate the hiatus . . . apply for sainthood . . . 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . .
while the springing offspring learn to roll with the punches
auditioning . . . auditioning . . . for bit parts . . . voiceovers . . .

Paolo Roversi

Pocket

          - for Diana, my once and future wife

at night
instead of sleep
I color images
of you . . .
costumed
dancing . . .
my heart
in your pocket

Screen Dump 228

Mimicking Whistler's Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1
you await the voices
which usually arrive at dinnertime
with stories, reflections, digressions . . .
sometimes with histories of common objects
like salt shakers . . . or deodorant sticks . . .
This is not your mother's bailiwick . . .
with its arsenal of words
jaggedly penciled onto drying canvases
going head-to-head with Twombly's crayony pronouncements
from lost worlds . . .
You color in Agnes Martin
with a diagnosis of schizophrenia . . . and shock treatments
sitting - off her rocker - on her rocker
in her adobe studio in Taos
waiting for the voices to quiet
before resuming her brushwork on six-by-six-foot canvases . . .
A hummingbird at the feeder texts you
capturing everything but disclosing nothing
as you exchange protocols
and arrive - with French press - at the solitude of the blank page . . .

Agnes Martin

Screen Dump 227

It's not what you expected . . .
First Netflix . . . and now? . . . the table read? . . .
Why think otherwise
when experience has spelled it out on the whiteboard? . . .
Editing the one-act might be the way to go
at least to buy time
before we go in for the full catastrophe . . .
tap dancing with bells and whistles
not unlike those who preregistered
for the cancelled  course . . .
The life of a delusion can be edifying . . . and fun . . .
certainly seductive . . . for most . . .
who instead of skipping to the last chapter
linger among words elsewhere . . .
letting the letters slide down their cool bodies . . .

Paolo Roversi