Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Screen Dump 422

Feelings of linearity . . . traced back to elementary school
and your fear of fat . . . and looking at strangers . . . but not really . . .
bowing to your mother's warning
that it's dangerous to meet their eyes . . .
The woman on the subway smelled of food
and wore a brooch that you are sure had a story to tell
but no one was listening . . .
perhaps a long ago interlude of intimacy . . .
Your palms sweated onto the cover of the book
you riffled through in the bookstore but decided not to buy
and now soaking away the day in your tub
with the Kindle'd edition
you're filled with remorse for not supporting
neighborhood moms & pops' . . .
The minuscule battles which daily weigh heavily . . .
despite the profusion of irony on the logos of t-shirts
on passersby in flood pants . . .
Soon there will be something somewhere
behooving you to engage . . . until eventually those too
will quietly fall off . . . and you will be left second-guessing
your moves as you play chess against a glass of Cabernet . . .

Christina Hoch

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Screen Dump 421

Sentences parsed on off days when somnambulists gather dust in makeshift libraries where amanuenses per diem'd mine the gasps of ghosts . . . The Hall of Incidentals opens for business as usual . . . shards of glass dropped in a labyrinth wait to enter your words . . . an amalgam of riffs on emptiness . . . held back in the early grades . . . There was a window . . . is a window . . . will be a window . . . I am working in the garden with voices lining up for handouts of iridescent themes . . . I know you know the opening lines to the nights that curl around you to caress you as scripted . . . This much of course . . . But so? . . . 

David Benoliel

Friday, May 11, 2018

Screen Dump 420

Your stint as resident insomniac
coughing up night terrors
silent screen stars speeding into the valley
thick with cloudcover . . .
Interior monologues terrifying the what-ifs
cowering in the corner of your bedroom
where nightly tête-à-têtes
announce imaginary numbers
to the worrisome packaged in plastic . . .
Better late than never, yes? . . .
Buckling up . . .
the backward logic of go-betweens
infinitesimal touch-ups
the ifs ands buts of moments
otherwise known as forever . . .
Do nothing . . . the tune earworms . . .
sidewalk cracks point the way . . .
You will be badged - and badgered -
in due course . . .
nothing else if not . . .
I can't help but think about the resurgence . . .
Yes, there will be more . . .

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

Saturday, May 5, 2018

Screen Dump 419

Maybe I'm amazed at the way you pulled me out of time.
          - Sir Paul McCartney

Writing ad copy for bedside pilgrims catapults you
into an altered state filled with past players . . . while token rituals
garner support from special interest groups
currying embellishments . . . There will be no extra credit
for your appreciation of footnotes or anything encapsulating
your past escapades . . . You like most have apparently forgotten
the mandatory reshooot of your life in which icemen
are jettisoned the one too many mornings after
before footage is returned to the underperforming film crew
with postage hampered by magical thinking . . .
Taking center stage with five minutes left in the quarter . . .
this ankle boot with socks thing bodes well for idiosyncranicity . . .
When was the last time you asked yourself? . . .