Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Screen Dump 369

You are lavish in the security of between-line labyrinths
obliterating bedpost notches as if rewriting
oxymorons . . . while Hallmarkian tributes
fester in a siding . . .
You trained your voice to ignore
the embellishments dripping from the rafters
where has-beens scramble for long balls
with gestures that make the evening news . . .
Why is keyboarding so difficult? . . .
Wait, let me try this . . . OK, that's better . . .
You said it yourself . . . though I'm at a loss
for what it was exactly . . . but who cares
if most things are not spot-on? . . .
Don't you just love that phrase? . . .
The polymorphous morning drenches . . .
Someone somewhere whistles . . .
soundtracking your journey into the afternoon's summit
where signposts await crayons
and we can spend a few moments dancing away
our hearts and souls . . .
Listen . . . do you hear it? . . .
The script! . . . My kingdom for a script! . . .
Again dredging up the dramaturgical model? . . .
Please, don't drop Goffman's name . . .
Without which you would be at a loss
for describing the dogeared pages of your little black book . . .
the doggerel of your little black dress . . .
Irrespective of something or other . . .
I think I know what you meant when you said what you said . . .
Confronting the silence at 3 AM . . .
We made new with old . . . and waited for the shore
to be washed along with the others . . .
Funny how things slip into cereal boxes
without much effort . . . (eight ball into the corner pocket) . . .
You were there when he/she dropped the ball
but proceeded nonetheless to run without it . . .
How ridiculous! . . . Disrobing in a fitting room . . .
Taking care to wipe off the counter
before the guests arrived . . . to speak in tongues . . .
Why so serious? . . .
This must be a transcription, yes? . . .
You are in the throes of minions . . . wishing for a timeout . . .
And now look who's here . . . три сестр . . .
Are you kidding with those accoutrements? . . .
You attended the play with an old jar? . . .
A magician gushed as he/she biked along the boulevard
where ghosts of past players
rehearsed on an empty stage brimmed with elliptical memories . . .
Irresponsible and aimless as an underhanded clock . . .
You saw the writing in the bread truck at 4 AM
regurgitating your lines as if he/she wanted to hear all about it . . .
But then, without warning . . .

Chekhov's Three Sisters at Cumbernauld Theatre Scotland (2016)

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Screen Dump 368

Instead of musing over unwritables
you conjure an upper playground of happenstance
illuminated by naked citrus fruits . . .
stand-ins for understudies . . .
This will have to do . . . for now . . .
Bad decisions again slept in the car
somehow skirting the inevitable
reworked into the script . . .
There's really nothing that can be done with the extended family
preparing for a voyage that may ultimately prove problematic . . .
We'll have to weather that as well, yes? . . .
Try to bring it full-circle
not unlike the past when you bumped into the future at a kiosk . . .
It took your breath away . . .
You continue to believe in the words as transcribed . . .
Nothing wrong with that . . . I too will play the options . . .
Who knows what we will find in the emptiness after the credits? . . .

Paolo Roversi

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Screen Dump 367

On the beach in full-dress rehearsal . . .
reaching for the gold ring
the merry-go-round anything but . . .
wooden horses stuffed with players
jostling for a taste of the imagination . . .
Your offering scanned . . .
Why the strange nomenclature? . . .
Why now with the betting windows closed
and all eyes on the disguise? . . .
I too had no idea it was an enormous pity
what with the domino-effect in effect
being force-fed the far-fetched rationale . . .
You get what you pay for, yes? . . .

Alina Lebedeva


Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Screen Dump 366

On the phone with a ventriloquist . . .
imagining his/her unmoving lips . . .
the script - fully formed - trotting across the stage
the lighting subdued . . .
you decide to rebuild the equation
to reduce the gap . . . the inequity . . .
as if jargon were the reason . . .
Pick a time and a place . . . that's it . . .
You will know your lines . . .
Five stars . . . if that means anything . . .
Intact . . . tweaking the past . . . prefiguring the future, yes? . . .
Credentialed of course . . .
for those who trust the certificate . . .

Alina Lebedeva

Monday, May 15, 2017

Screen Dump 365

Do you think you're talking to a normal person here?
          - David Letterman

You have become a gardener of time
refusing to admit to theory . . .
to the notion of passage . . .
balancing world views on a pinhead
while cataloging the entrails of happenstance . . .
Hopes, dreams, paradigms, yes? . . .
come together as a resolution of sorts . . .
of elements of style . . . of chance . . .
the harmonics of each breath . . .
the sound deafening . . . as you confront silence . . .
unable to contribute anything as spellbinding
as emptiness . . .

David Letterman


Sunday, May 14, 2017

Screen Dump 364

You made sure the sidings were empty . . .
The inexplicable explained in the margins
of chapbooks that have taken flight
as a way to appropriate images
from Facebook friends . . .
Squeezing through the mirror
in the fun house
is a fun thing to do on days when footnotes fail . . .
Do you feel as obligated as you once did? . . .
You telling me about your expertise
or what you took to be your expertise . . .
You certainly had your share
of forgotten moments . . .
when out of the blue you received applications
for the position you had yet to advertise . . .
It's all in the business cards, I guess . . .
A good thing you insisted on photo IDs . . .
The incidental music proved a fascinating backstory . . .
One that held the listener . . .
and prompted most to order seconds . . .

Diandra Forrest


Saturday, May 13, 2017

Screen Dump 363

Instead a foray into electronic music . . .
You make do with the acoustics . . .
The true through kicks it up a notch
along the canal of your second chapter
which is pretty much good to go . . .
A low thin cloud invades the recording studio . . .
Again, the emptiness . . .
with a dark function that takes on the late '80s
as if you have isolated the indexes
which hold the order of players
as listed in the credits . . . which keep rolling . . .
There's really nothing to do here . . .
Does this ring a bell? . . .
Recall the boardwalk . . . and the hookups
when everyone smoked or seemed to . . .

Diandra Forrest

Monday, May 8, 2017

Screen Dump 362

Your Likert-type scale with its even number of anchors renders fence-sitting impossible . . . Not that anyone cares . . . Auditions for Player-of-the-Month continue . . . The constant gardener . . . The reassignment of persons places things . . . You are reassigned  . . . elsewhere . . . You apply for a sabbatical . . . to study ins-and-outs . . . redactions . . . Expungements like a good neighbor . . . The bus stations of your odyssey morph into empty rooms . . . Mannequins appear . . . and color-code themselves . . . to fit in . . . Implied otherness . . . is not an oft-used phrase . . . Quickly, the storm of texts arrives . . . uninvited . . . Reading the odd numbered chapters . . . evenly spaced . . . is one way to go . . . Questions from past players . . . hoping to score . . . choke your answering machine . . . Your mother appears and orders a chunk of suet for gołąbki . . . Porcelain-skinned Angela, the store owner's wife, reaches across the counter . . . with a piece of fruit . . . The window showcases bound, hanging cheeses . . . their sharpness . . . the entrapment of memory . . . squeezing through the fence . . . dealing . . . or not . . . A Proustian moment as joie de vivre . . .

Diandra Forrest

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Screen Dump 361

. . . not trying has become the whole point.
          - Maggie Nelson, Bluets

Trafficking in hidden agendas with day-glo paint misses the point . . .
Restorative innocence quells the spirit . . .
and makes playing modal à la Bill Evans an eye-patch drama
as if licking the clothing off the fresco'd figures
on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel . . .
awakening the bloom of lilacs . . .
tweaking photos to edit the story
you want Facebook friends to commit to memory . . .
Hamming it up . . . 20, 30, 40 years ago . . .
Your co-ham now gone, yes? . . .
his smile . . . an afterthought . . .
Why now the disambiguation
of shouldering the burden as we stumble along with
the happiness? . . . sadness? . . . indifference? . . .
of posting the past? . . .
I am just past pedaling . . . appropriating deep-throat lyrics
for an avatar aging out of a forgotten storyboard . . .
Not trying has become the whole point . . . and nothing but, yes?. . .