Screen Dump 294

You step into an autofiction
having taken a lateral to customer service
the engagements
just out of reach . . . by the practitioners of deviant art . . .
chattering incessantly about their memoirs
on and off clipper ships . . .
You have written up many . . . in the wee hours
detailing their feigned interpenetrations
in the common room
and bedrooms of your third chapter . . .
Several fade on their own
Facechatting others
worrying unannounced site visitors
who insist on rummaging through cupboards
for late-night munchies . . .
But what's the backstory? . . .
There is no backstory . . .
The backstory doesn't matter . . .
There's just this bubble into which we are dropped
and it goes from there . . .
A temporary job chalks up years . . .
and before you know it . . . you know . . .
Please excuse me . . .
I must continue recording the dreams of insomniacs . . .

Alina Lebedeva

Screen Dump 293

Testing the waters reignites 35-year-old narratives . . .
almost boarding a plane
almost after three stiff weeks in bed
Facebooked as Hello Stranger . . .
the blind alley as harmonic space
as prelude to performance
as color-coded jackhammer . . .
It's all about pushing molecules around, yes? . . .
And in the middle:
But I'm not interested . . .
OK, but are you interested in a subset . . .
or a sublet . . .
based on the prime numbers two, three, and five
sidestepping headstones . . .
the graveyard swollen with the bones of whalers? . . .
And now this? . . .
How real the fantasy? . . .
A master fornicator . . . Byronish . . .
taking an Uber to the Land of Eros . . .
eliciting a belly laugh
from the party of the third part
lying next to you at 3 AM . . .
Room service? . . . What room service? . . .
The idea . . . not so much to simulate synesthesia
as to explore possible interactions
possible interconnections
among sound, vision, space, and time . . .
Does harmonic space for example projected over time
onto physical space stop time . . .
or does it simply add players to Throwback Thursdays? . . .
Entranced by a frugal eater . . . pocket change . . .
I dunno . . . trepidatious, I guess . . . just sayin' . . .

Anne Hathaway in Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)

Screen Dump 292

You open yourself to experimentation . . .
to the edge of the virtual (visual?) cliff . . .
Bemused subjects . . . some with nosejobs . . . follow suit . . .
costumed . . . for understudy
leading you back to the blank pages of your grammar school
where nuns . . . in full habit . . . patrol the halls . . .
dispensing indulgences with warnings . . .
The doorbell rings . . .
you answer it . . . and vanish . . .
for seven or eight years . . .
assuming various identities . . .
selecting menu items from both columns . . .
Admittedly, not much of a musical talent . . .
Offshore, an Evinrude sputters . . .
Newsprint crawling on all fours teases
grammarians emeriti . . .
the walls of your apartment besmirched
by an unknown stand-up comic . . .
You decide not to pick up where you left off
burying yourself instead in a dogeared Whole Earth Catalog . . .
convinced that double-reeds are the way to go . . .
a contrabassoonist satisfying your oral fixation . . .
This person who shall remain nameless . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 291

Life can only be understood backwards, . . .
          - Soren Kierkegaard

So I threw it into reverse
but still couldn't make out the Christmas carolers
the decked halls
the pristine lines . . . enjambed
my grandparents' wedding day
the tête-à-têtes
the in-absentias . . .
though I did hear the jazzers . . . faintly . . .
Then I got a new bicycle . . . a Rollfast . . .
red with red streamers . . .
Hey, where'd ya get the two-wheeler? . . .
From the bicycle shop in the lagoon
owned by a pod of sperm whalers
who were able to make a go of it
with the help of a small business grant . . .
It pays to know . . . you know? . . .
They ran through the specs of my bike
and filled me in on the whaling industry
circa 1800s . . .
the ghost ships that still roam the high seas
searching for missing children . . .
Like the Rachel or Terry Riley's In C? . . .
You got that right! . . .
Can you come out and play? . . .
No, I've got to finish shucking corn
and scoring gooseberries . . .
My life as a gooseberry . . . the sequel . . .
It's Canada not Canadian . . .
A bushel and a peck . . . and a rat-a-tat-tat . . .
Lying on a futon
in front of The Late Late . . . Late Show . . .
on a cool summer evening
Colin Clive as Victor Frankenstein
It's alive! . . .
the permutations . . . the combinations . . .
the out-of-the-box footage . . . knit one . . . purl two . . .
the cereal box mazes . . .
with shadows awaiting the heat of the sun . . .
a window to . . . Whereverland . . .
being clueless . . . the ecstasy thereof . . .
Falling asleep . . .
entering the room of a dream backwards
where she arrives . . . on a Harley . . .
I am all of 75 . . .

Screen Dump 290

Pronouns are . . . bossy and noisy.
          - Maggie Nelson

Plasticity spells adaptation . . . and suddenly
you know the next steps
suddenly you are the next steps
and the wherewithal . . .
and the noteworthy elements essential to the day . . .
to all days . . .
telling others they were at the concert . . .
telling others they are the concert . . .
There are no bigger fish to fry . . .
upstream or downstream . . .
Go out . . . see for yourself . . .
Was Leonardo DiCaprio worrying proper footwear
at the end of The Revenant? . . .
Weren't the embellishments so very very cool? . . .
and how about the sound trays
in their accoutrements . . .
introduced in the final two minutes
or was it the stranger . . .
or strangers
behind Door #2
awaiting the sound of your footsteps at 3 AM? . . .
arms filled with accents . . .
I'm tap dancing with language . . .
tap dancing with words
my feet are words . . .
Clarity? . . . I don't want to give everything away . . .
Who gives everything away? . . .
There's always a sequel, yes? . . .
If not, there should be a sequel . . . several! . . .
I hope I'm not too far off base here . . .

Laura Zalenga

Screen Dump 289

You seem to have these labyrinthine moments
in which 1001 strangers hang on your every word . . .
well, maybe not every word . . .
and printers' devils brown-bag the New Narrative
with finger-lickin' goodness
retrospectively, of course . . .
Like when you are regarded spot-on . . .
Suddenly, the clouds part . . . leaving you where? . . .
Leaving you here . . . in this difference of opinion
this semi-detraction
this double-wide
this then and now . . . of nail nippers
reportedly able to cut through bone . . .
It's quite obvious that you've been fiddling again
with the (place) settings . . .
Have you been taking your meds or are you out on a limb
with the go-betweens straddling bipolarities? . . .
The oblivion of being both is contraceptive, yes? . . .
I have felt this from the false-start . . .
Then doing a walkabout with the architecture buffs
though being able to regard each with a finer metric
is a good thing . . .
something worth going to bat for . . .
like the ever-present sexuality of the so-called moment . . .
the labyrinthine moment . . .
when the next installment arrives in the inbox
long after the deadline . . .

Laura Zalenga

Screen Dump 288

[a choral piece for seven voices]

v1: We are gathered here today to . . .
v2: Yes?
v3: Disregard the mirror's embarrassed reflection
its sameness . . .
neither stated nor implied
not unlike trying to find a mismatch in the sock drawer.
v4: Huh?
v5: Quibbling over the blueness of blue
and how over time most bow to convention.
v6: Fractured Fairy Tales!
v7: The fractured refuse to engage . . . for shame!

v1: A new cast awaits the green light.
v2: Bravo!
v3: We all occasionally buy into fools, yes?
v4: Grumble.
v5: C'mon, aren't we suppose to be sharing misnomers?
v6: But I've been unfriended!
v7: I continue to be distracted by the horizontality of positions.

v1: That happens . . . see Wittgenstein.
v2: Me too! To say nothing of the horizontality of arguments.
v3: You must remember this . . .
v4: Casablanca?
v5: I think I need to rethink.
v6: Rethink what?
v7: I'm locked out of my email and . . .

v1: I can't get (it) up!
v2: Like rain? The not-so-small hands of rain?
v3: But what if I expect otherwise?
v4: What if I misread the fine print?
v5: I need to rethink where to begin.
v6: Begin at the beginning, of course.
v7: Now look at what you've made me do!

v1: Look at what I've made you do?
v2: Hiding . . . again . . . behind your micro-softened words?
v3: Will I feel crushed? Is it OK to feel crushed?
v4: I'm the needle for the email thread.
v5: Cue the violin choir.
v6: Let the SUV careen off the edge of the screen.
v7: Epitaph? . . . What epitaph?

Mighty Aphrodite (1995)