Moments

We do not remember days, we remember moments.
          - Cesare Pavese

In Room 401, a woman takes her last breath.

Elsewhere a surgeon positions a square of mesh to repair
a patient's hernia.

A maintenance man in a supermarket scrubs the walls
of a restroom.

Cows' breaths fill the air as a farmer brushes snow
off a trough . . .

and fills it with feed.

A young girl inserts a DVD of Wuthering Heights
into a Blu-Ray player, puzzling over the author's
pen name, Ellis Bell.

A tiger cat scratches litter in a litter box.

Kittens squeeze into a cardboard box that contained
12 bottles of Pinot Noir.

A homeless person arranges a cardboard box over a
heating grate.

Snow continues to fill the gray morning as cars
chance slick roadways.

In a dream a pinstriped mannequin enters a fun house.

A short-order cook whisks two dozen eggs.

A cellist works through Bach's Prelude.

Construction workers seated at a counter remove
their winter headgear.

A waitress refills cups of coffee, mentally reviewing
the material for tonight's mid term.

A children's book author enters rehab.

A shooter racks his handgun . . .

and fires into a crowd of shoppers at a mall.

At 4 AM a snowplow driver gets behind the wheel
of a snowplow.

A politician delivers a speech written by his staffer.

An actor rehearses lines.

An addict snorts lines.

An ER nurse worries her son's DWI.

A pregnant woman brews tea.

A pregnant woman is hurried into an emergency room.

A college president applies Anbesol to a painful tooth.

A nursing home resident cleans his dentures.

A platoon leader opens a Kindle.

A painter sits in front of a blank canvas.

A personal trainer leads a group of elderly trainees
through several aerobic exercises.

Hikers pitch a tent in a heavily wooded area.

The sun sets.

The sun rises.

A crash slows traffic to a crawl.

Someone dies.

Someone else dies.

A pediatrician delivers a baby.

Kids take turns sliding down a slide.

A couple enters a restaurant.

A man and a woman play chess.

A skier begins a descent.

An elderly person thinks back.

A potter throws a pot.

A pitcher throws a slider.

A batter swings.

A line cook preps vegetables.

A vegan orders off the menu.

A conductor raises her baton.

A drum majorette twirls her baton.

A motorist falls asleep at the wheel.

transit by Korner

Screen Dump 483

The barking that began four years ago has moved
into supportive housing . . .

declaiming the Fine Art of the Tin Can which came
and went and is back again

at your back door in leotard and pointe shoes . . .
The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in

a French Foreign Legion film has gone missing . . .
along with Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes

reshot on the moors of Ellis Bell's Wuthering Heights
with Roger Ebert's 4/4 rating . . .

European River Cruises are again flooded with
escapees . . . and deservedly so, yes? . . .

the day-to-day has gotten crazier . . . and crazier
and everyone's packing . . .

Did I say that or are you quoting the cereal box's
morning diatribe on fiber optics? . . .

YouTube'd beyond the glacial evergreens of your latest
inscrutable ruminations . . .

Give it a shot . . . nothing to lose . . .
How did the audition go? . . .

Trying to finish the book
before the culvert gets your goat . . .

We both saw that in the cards
last summer on Commercial Street . . .

Kyoko Kishida in Woman in the Dunes (1964)

Screen Dump 482

This morning's bowl of Instant Quaker Oats
tried to warn you but you were busy Photoshopping
the crepey-skinned blue-penciled up-close-
and-personals shadowing you in the mirror . . .
You continue to pine for present participles . . .
the -i-n-g forms . . . the phantom-limbed future
participle . . . parsing the past . . . reviewing
rejected scripts submitted for your approval
by lesser-known wannabes from your old
neighborhood . . . To reject out of hand is a ploy
you use at last calls . . . trying to retrace your steps
to Utopia . . . pinned with a Rolodex of past players
who want to be friended - and more - on Facebook . . .
their arthritic lines as out-of-sync
as their costumes . . . You thought you'd enjoy
a respite but interlopers have begun bullying
noodles with chopsticks . . . demanding
takeaways . . . imagining the seven levels
of Golden Books . . . as if eating spaghetti
with a spoon . . . Ring Around the Rosie
soundtracks this latest craziness . . . boardwalk
castaways . . . nailing lines . . . adjusting camera
angles to entice the forgotten . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 481

You paraphrase delusions on street corners
for pocket change . . . The eyes of beholders
diagram the angles of seduction . . .
A steam locomotive stalls mid-steam . . .
sizzling something fierce in concert
with a pig roast where locals unravel
their histories of . . . Hooliganism,
I suppose . . . in throwaways . . . Is it? . . .
channeling Stevie Nicks's Gypsy . . .
outtakes left as gratuities by troubadours
passing through backwaters . . .
Bookbinding . . . the art of chance
for personal trainers with perfect form
qua function . . . The plot agape
as she leans in with a tearjerker
about her deadbeat dad . . .
a concert violinist from Siberia
who knew the score only too well . . .
mapping the lonely corridor along
cholesterol clogged arteries festering
coronaries . . . The monologue . . .
soliloquy? . . . speaks nonsense to partners
in loco parentis as they appear . . . trailing
incomplete sentences . . .
A show of hands indeed would . . .

Stevie Nicks

Screen Dump 480

You raise the stakes . . . then flee to CVS for ibuprofen . . .
ignoring tabled warnings . . .
emergency room regulars triaged . . . color-coded . . .
A big-shouldered cybertruck roams rotaries . . .
and the rules of the game are about to change
as the pizza arrives . . . and Act 2 begins . . .
You know you're trying to dress the part
with insignificance . . . but the clock shouts-out
circumstantial evidence from the inquiry . . .
and we're out of the gate, stuttering and stumbling . . .
retracing our steps to Utopia . . .
Inner ear hair cell damage from gangster flicks
with pals De Niro and Pacino and Pesci
and another epic conversation . . . conversion . . .
on the streets of Everytown . . .
shrink-wrapped and UPS'd to an offshore laundromat . . .

Deborah Turbeville

Screen Dump 479

You worry Wonderland . . . and free shipping . . .
beta testing mantras on moonless nights
when peeling windows in SROs
look out onto playgrounds of orphans . . .
Boulevards drip off the edge of the canvas
for odysseyites tricked-out as centenarians from empty malls . . .
You surf YouTube for blue ribbon grilled cheese sandwiches
and think a field drill of sorts might help flip
the double-wides popping up in your lower 40
where answers in search of questions pester pensioners
who pine for the palisades of their entry exam
when they arrived late with bags of bags
sporting the endgame into the second
of five openings culled from a dog-eared how-to manual . . .

Anka Zhuravleva

Screen Dump 478

In nomine Patris mixes with pinot
the whole thing out of whack
sadly phenomenal with
Frankie (Relax) Goes to Hollywood
as if opening a door
and you wish for a silver bangle
to dispel the ennui so reminiscent
of comedown mornings
at archaeological digs
before being earwormed back
to the present with scenes
from Body Double tweeting
your climb up a silk rope
in some club du jour . . .
Hostile (eye)witness accounts
blur the truth . . . but it's there . . .
it always was . . .
in invisible ink . . .
under yellowing legal pads . . .
diagramming disclaimers
from headstone rubbings . . .
letters of the alphabet randomly
regrouping into images
of your odyssey
as your selfie pouts,
loses footing, tumbles headlong . . .
he said . . . she said . . . they said . . .

Body Double (1984)

Screen Dump 477

Your costume walks out in the middle
its voice climbing to falsetto
as the mechanisms of relationships reach that point
where yesterdays audition for tomorrows
and you begin to lose track . . .
pining for buybacks
reposting blank pages
leaving everything to the imagination
while outside an Uber driver lays on the horn . . .
The table of contents grows silent
despite the book's shortlisting . . .
its labyrinth gutted . . . replaced by a dayglo condo . . .
Sideshow castrati are again using . . .
can you blame them? . . .
You know all the 3x5" index cards by name
and are smug in the commonplace
but not sure about the mapping
or where the choral group left the planchette
for the ouija board . . .
You agree to become a Ticonderoga #2
to have a go at drafting an intro
for the next installment . . . of your life . . .
Meanwhile you lose yourself in cascades
of coloratura . . . Who are we to deprive
the outer limits where players stationed elsewhere
engage overheated proofs
meant to placate the giddy? . . .
This too as if the body were a deliberate portion
charged with finalizing the recorded remarks
of those with magic lanterns
tattooed on their triceps . . .
The momentary arrives and will be with us shortly
its voice not unlike the cathedrals
of childhood where every nuance was bronzed
as a piece of the puzzle . . .

Wendy Bevan

Screen Dump 476

The inability of all the king's horses and all the king's men
to stay within the lines of code . . .
the lines . . . encrypted . . . taunted . . . tainted
by a rainbow of Crayolas . . .
Insensitivity defaults inept players . . .
and landscapes . . . and peoplescapes . . .
as frontal lobectomies mix dread with inconsequentials . . .
Bezos's Are you lazy or just incompetent? . . .
continues with It's really nothing . . . refusing
to be taken down to the sea
with the Ahabs . . . of Coney Island . . .
as if the shoe has yet to drop . . .
laboring . . . again . . .
under the conundrum . . . 8 / 2 (2 + 2) = ? . . .
Procrustean? . . . Daniel Day-Lewis's My Left Foot . . .
The lines as written . . . are drawn . . . delivered . . .

Mathematician Emmy Noether (1882-1935)

Here's my winning entry in the Hudson Valley Writers Guild Dear Herman Contest, celebrating Herman Melville's 200th birthday. The four winners - Susan Carroll Jewel, Mark W. O'Brien, Dianne Sefcik, & I - will read our winning entries Saturday, October 12th, from noon to 2 PM, at the Melville House in Troy, NY:

Melville's Sister

I'm talking with Melville's kid sister
a scrappy towhead
with eyes like deep water
who signed on for a tour of the high seas
with her brother
but ended up here
in New Bedford
pierced, inked, in mauve coveralls,
slathering mustard and meat sauce
on footlongs for hard hats
from a shiny aluminum vending cart.

She communicates with great whites in trees
tends a small garden of hooded flowers
whose petals hold charts of whale migrations
collects harpoons she uses as pokers.

She talks about her brother
writing a novel about a mad hunt
for a fearsome whale
in a room on the second floor
overlooking distant mountains
in a farmhouse
on 160 acres in the Berkshires
that he named Arrowhead
after the relics he dug up
with his plow.

Her eyes darken as she mentions his demons
the locks on his writing-room
his pacing to escape the mind’s maelstrom
the ungodly boredom
his endless digressions
his obsession with privacy
that led him to destroy nearly all his letters
his dislike of photographers
(“to the devil with you and your Daguerreotype!”)
the so-called “failed” scribbling –
“The Whale” . . . too ambitious, too long, a leviathan –
despite its marks of “unquestionable genius”
the accusation of madness
prompting his postscript “I ain’t crazy.”

She chuckles as she tells me
how much her brother likes to watch
the farm animals eat,
especially taken by what he calls the “sanctity”
of the way the cow moves her jaws.

I too am taken, with this strange woman
whose costumes mimic the South Seas,
whose toenails match the color of noctilucent clouds
whose hands are music.

Off hours, she fulfills fantasies

her voice like billowing sails
guiding Ishmaels through narrow canals
spellbinding them
with the sounds of humpbacks
note for note
measure upon measure
before releasing them
drained yet sated
into the morning commute.

Herman Melville

Screen Dump 475

A kid on a red Stingray pops indifferent wheelies . . .
hits the ground with a three-point
far back enough . . . bulges the slot . . .
Did she say 40 percent . . . uniformed domestic violence?. . .
Netflix? . . . Unbelievable is unbelievable . . .
Milton scribbles in Will's margins . . .
in a Lost and Found Department . . . in Philadelphia . . .
Let the guy in booth #4 finish his two eggs over easy
while the monkeys of impeachment
get juice . . . for the miles to go before we sleep . . .
and you can forget about targeting the streets
with pinch hitters . . .
The count . . . three and one . . .
and the lopsided scales step up to the plate . . .
A memorial service . . . a wedding . . .
a bus making a left turn . . . stopped . . .
at an intersection . . .
a car speeding through . . .
and the scene shifts . . . precipitously . . .
The color of the year? . . .
Naval (blue) . . . Sherwin-Williams . . .
First light (pink) . . . Benjamin Moore . . .
Didn't they intimate as much
while you were locked on
Carson's The Beauty of the Husband:
So why did I love him from early girlhood to late middle age?. . .
Beauty. No great secret. . . . Beauty convinces. . . .
But what of late middle age . . . and beyond . . .
The falling leaves drift by my window?. . .
Let's open to Chapter 19 . . .
You'll smell land where there'll be no land . . .
And on that day . . .
Elijah?. . . Moby Dick?. . .
The movie . . . in the movie . . . not the book . . .
YouTube it . . .

Merritt Wever and Toni Collette in Unbelievable (2019)

Screen Dump 474

Your oversized straw hat smirks innuendo
as it tunnels through an off-key dream sequence . . .
Hard work . . . when you can get it . . .
Can you imagine the mixup
highlighted for future reference chomping along? . . .
The rest was nothing much despite the normative inflation
which of late seems to have become your thing . . .
as if strengthening your core
curriculum with tacky math problems
and anti-static sheets
will translate into an anaerobic Dean's List . . .
The placeholder . . . confrontationally aloof . . .
pontificating in a faint, hippy-ish voice
that makes it hard to tell if he/she is joking . . .
It's kind of like repeat after me
as the concrete gargoyles refuse to dry
and this after the rigmarole of YouTube . . .
Time and again . . . something or other . . . Which is it? . . .
You have become adept at reconfiguring passwords
into anagrams for the keto set . . .
Here's that mountain of prejudicial evidence . . .
At one time funeral parlors, yes?. . .
Driving through a downpour, pinging . . .
Again . . . what's your IP address? . . .
Just checking to see if you have incorporated the go-betweens
into your bid for bluebook collectibles . . .
Ribbons and bows . . . of course . . .
and pedal-to-the-metal instances
when playing Spin the Kiosk with neighborhood pranksters
who know enough to wait in the wings . . .

Screen Dump 473

Everything seems to be happening out there . . . not in here . . .
the life of your interior monologue
sucked dry by the black leather overly-zippered motorcycle jackets
parading the catwalk . . . the pretend-pudding pop-up
all augmentation . . . the recipe shouting out ingredients . . .
Trying to please uniformed players . . .
free agents force-fed the how-to manual
while side-stepping backstory politics (Unfair?) . . .
You were back-and-forth for a while . . .
juggling schedules with having-to-be-there-then . . .
tripping over the dynamics of being in-the-moment
while regressing to the convenience of taking dictation
with rubberized accoutrements . . .
finally escaping to the Cape for what some would consider
a ploy . . . but the logjam was such that
the entries were botched . . . and first-responders were on break . . .
You could have at least called it in
but that would have in effect amounted to an admission of something
as the sloop slips through the harbor . . .

Serkan Alpsar

Screen Dump 472

Color-coding the alphabet is a nice touch
with your dreams tweaked to fit
and the marina stacked with tall ships . . .
The method . . . as demo'd in the studio . . .
Decades since you assumed the position
leveling the playing field
pulling down the visor
to use the mirror to apply lipstick . . .
your forward-facing eyes spelling predation . . .
on a sweltering August afternoon
all ribbons and bows
(at least for some)
welcoming auditioners with downward-facing-dog . . .
The day written up and played with gusto . . .
I'm sure it meant something . . . to someone . . .

Jan Scholz

I Continue To Get Older (Performance Piece)

I continue
I continue
I continue
To get older   

I continue
I continue
I continue
To get older

It's not fair
I'm losin' my hair
First it turned gray
Now it falls away
Each and every day

Other hairs appear
Uninvited
Unannounced
Unwelcomed
In unexpected places

They've begun to colonize
My ears, nose, and eyes

I continue
I continue
I continue
To get older   

I continue
I continue
I continue
To get older

I can't see
what I'm doin'
I can't taste
what I'm eatin'
I can't hear
what I'm sayin'
I can't say
what I'm thinkin'
I can't think
what I'm sayin'

My nose grows
My chest is recessed

My teeth decay
They fall away
Gum has become a verb, OK?
I don't go out to play
Much anymore

I continue
I continue
I continue
To get older   

I continue
I continue
I continue
To get older

I can't get it up
I can't get it down
In bed
I'm Bozo the Clown

I shrivel
I shrink
I piddle
I stink

My crepey skin
Is all done in
It’s a sin, a no-win
This shape I'm in

I can't see
I can't pee
There is no glee
Left in me

My wrinkled face
Stares into space
My final frontier
Is here!

i c u by Tom Corrado

Screen Dump 471

The skeletons in your closet gloat their Harleys
as a bobber dips below the surface
and you imagine a plate of crêpes with an old friend
in a seaside town
catching up on interpersonals
the who what when where whys
of your collaborative one-acts . . .
You consider skipping the chapter
(you've done this before with little consequence)
but step down . . . tiller glued to your palm
as if guiding a sloop through a narrow canal
within arms reach of kids fishing off the pier . . .
The clock flusters
wringing its hands which must resume
their pantomime of stuttered signage . . .
words infinitely looped to storm ignorance . . .
Again the palette complicates . . .
Perhaps you should use ultramarine to color
the major and minor keys
soundtracking your tête-à-têtes
on rain-soaked afternoons . . . in rain-soaked sidings . . .

Fabio Chizzola

Screen Dump 470

La Traviata speaks to you subliminally
at Glimmerglass . . . while a summer breeze
directs the wind section . . .
the churlish conductor having become expert
at rewinding graphic novels
whose magic realism spins gesticulations
that levitate a group of prestidigitators
enjoying a month in the country . . .
Lakeside, naysayers badmouth
a visual cliff . . . It may have been Chaucer's
Widower's Tale . . . the pothead dialing in
your height at Stewart's . . .
his accomplices re-reading the backstory
of Joe Green Investment Strategist
who flips houses for émigrés qua enablers . . .
as the morning's comeuppance
tilts the pinball machine playing footsie
with footloose mannequins brought in
out of the rain to decompress . . . Coincidentally,
the townhouse's address . . . These are a few, yes? . . .

Corinne Winters as Violetta

Screen Dump 469

It was the lowest common denominator . . .
A safe harbor of sorts
odysseyites waiting for the right moment
ship-shape and what have you
interested parties with protein drips . . .
How did we lapse into forgetfulness? . . .
The bar set higher . . . and higher . . .
only to see it through to the next chapter
if in fact that . . . The sprockets
jammed when the games began
with return receipts requested . . .
Too much to expect a banana plantation
or a blue lagoon for that matter . . . managing the scene
as if players opened wide for the next transit strike . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 468

You worry the pot boiling over . . .
fallen arches . . . tick-borne illnesses . . .
gingivitis . . . while
the Snellen Chart at DMV
broadcasts your password to DUIs
drying out in cursive . . .
Eyeballs eyeball you up and down
wasting time . . . waiting . . .
in the waiting line . . . with wait staff . . .
There is little chance to buy into it
with this blind date
who seems engrossed . . . and then some . . .
but what to do, yes? . . .
A minute ago a disinterested party
slipped through a portal
inadvertently left ajar by a do-gooder
who will be written up . . .
docked perhaps . . . as a one-act
in the local theater group . . .
Is it wrong to remain non-committal
at this archaeological dig
cluttered with dusty appendages . . .
to hesitate ramping-up the ho-humness
infecting the meadow? . . .
You have a full box of Crayolas
waxing philosophically . . .
somewhere . . . over the rainbow . . .

Screen Dump 467

Banging on the keys of an ancient Remington
you try to craft poems immune to dissection
yanking words letter by letter like teeth
from your own River Styx . . . the boatman quietly urging his Evinrude
with yelps from the middle of an estuary
igniting the survivalist in weekend L. L. Beaners
stringing franks alphabetically across a fire pit . . .
They make the six-o-clock news . . .
Does this help? . . . I mean . . . what is it? . . .
I mean are you ready to dazzle with a minor French ditty
within walking distance of the Arc de Triomphe
the flight over . . . scrambled . . . lowercase letters
with smartphones gag-ordered? . . .
Odysseyites living in yurts in the 'Dacks . . .  undergo drawbridges . . .
drop blurbs like bread crumbs . . . invent metaphors
for trees whose bent limbs backstory crepey skin . . .
I'm with you all the way . . . though truth be told . . . I'm having a blast . . .
though I couldn't think of a proper go-between
so the induced quail from his poem was summoned . . .
You seem unaware of your whereabouts . . .
the voices from the air as loud as a triage of cats . . . soliloquies
with ancient cuneiform symbols kayaking with ice bats
which Carson . . . superstarishly influential enough
to assume the mantle of dabbler . . . was quick to say don't exist . . .

Mario Sorrenti

Screen Dump 466

The caption read stick-in-the-muds
with Happy Hour promises color-coded for Slim Jims
with night vision . . .
the participants . . . again . . . flipping houses
location . . . location . . . location . . .
the psychodynamics of water coolers
tweeting yesterday's easy access . . .
But the last coat overlaid the patter . . .
backstroking towards Brooklyn . . .
the words rearranging themselves
to fit the scene . . .
several gym bags, backpacks, what have you . . .
You studied the script . . . waited . . .

Marcin Szpak

Screen Dump 465

One after another . . . after another . . . one . . . after . . .
the scene opens . . . jump start a late-model coupe? . . .
Trying to stay focused on the endgame . . . lately, always the endgame . . .
The months . . . One month later: enigmatic, if nothing . . .
You had to jump start a late-model coupe . . .
Ring it in with the weight of water . . .
Scene after scene . . . filling with water . . .
Of course, that was then . . . of course . . .
Illogicality and intentionality . . . strange whodunits . . .
Traverse, as in, I traversed the pristine moment . . .
The innate structure of the moment when you, for example, encounter
the other . . . adrift, alphabetizing . . . hitting the pavement . . .
drip-dried . . . as if off the end of Pollock's stick . . .
after which he/she took it on the chin in a pop-up panopticon . . .

Steven Meisel

Screen Dump 464

Reenactors reenact the Battle of Woodstock '69 . . .
It was here . . . The happening was here . . . George C. Scott . . . again . . .
First, do no harm, yes? . . . despite the hiss to litigate . . .
We're off . . . while someone somewhere is sequestered . . .
Is this how happenstance happens? . . .
You have been approached to put together a skit for retirees
who worry the fixed sitcom's bottom line . . .
This is only the beginning of cats in Aviators . . .
The free throw line chows down . . . as if in another life -
your other life - the overture degrades to dissonance . . .
The afterimage of your ticket to go beyond . . . in the metro window? . . .

Katerina Plotnikova

Screen Dump 463

How else could he know what I know?
          - Maya Angelou

You windowshop for a one-way ticket to immortality
as the bell opens Round Seven
to a color field measuring eight-feet-by-six-feet . . .
footnoting the 600 square feet  Rothko reneged on
while Vivaldi's Four Seasons follows
the two-point-five mil as it disappears
into someone's backstory
demonstrating for arts majors the phenomenon
of the Rothkovian blur . . . Lady Macbeth's
Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts,
unsex me here . . .
Enter, stage left, Somnambulist 1:
I jaywalk out of a lobotomy . . . I mean, c'mon . . .
with lines like this? . . . Soliloquize me! . . .
A woman wrote Shakespeare? . . .
But didn't we already know that? . . .
Perhaps the archives bubble with happenstance
and Little Miss Whatsherface shadows the Bard's ghost . . .
This too will be stuffed into a time capsule
as soon as . . . Enter, Somnambulist 2:
I texted "Taming of the Shrew" Katherine
who blurted "My tongue will tell the anger of my heart . . ."
The boxed set wins, yes? . . . especially
in those moments of fine-tooth combing . . .
the beach at best . . . the least we could hope for
in dawn's early flubbed lines . . .
Whoa! . . . here's Somnambulist 3
with Othello's Emilia: Let husbands know /
Their wives have sense like them.
You trace the circumference of the argument
centuries later bolstered by hard-core gas canisters
spewing death . . . the exits sealed . . .
the moments lapsing into forevermore . . .
The bell ending the round? . . . Of course we knew . . .

Screen Dump 462

You enjoy nuance . . . worry that neither
science nor religion adequately explains the world
as you think you know it . . .
the simultaneity with its information overload
kicking players to the curb . . .
The concert of minimalist parentheticals
made for an interesting respite
with its backstory on the inner life of trees . . .
And here comes the anxiety over broken links
catapulting you into a message room of sorts
where you try on different what ifs
following each to its logical delusion
which is a must . . . if you must . . .
Perhaps the augmentation can be repaired
effecting no less than a faux tectonic shift in paradigm . . .
If only life were a smidgen more palatable
especially in those moments
when the rubber fails to meet the road
and warmongers load their styluses . . .
Meanwhile . . . a bed of flowers . . .
spirited away by the porosity of sleep . . . a portal
to past liaisons . . . your mother offering to pay your way . . .
a phone call . . . grays-out the options . . .
dreams of indifference eventually elbowing in
as you review the video of summer's fiber deployment . . .

Sia and Maddie Ziegler at Apple Launch

Screen Dump 461

The matinee chides your hypothesis
bulking the theorem into oblivion . . .
Early arrivals arrive . . .
captured on security cameras . . .
he said . . . she said . . . they said . . .
sample bags brim with notions from ATMs . . .
fingers finger finger food . . .
count doubloons . . . worry
the quivering idiocy of disintegration . . .
Instead of pampering the chef, perhaps? . . .
By the time the opposition dismounts
the case will have been opened and shut . . .
The alleged victim . . . vis-à-vis
camera-shy sommeliers . . .
It's all in the sealed indictment . . .
at least according to Wikileaks . . .
Perhaps we shouldn't go there? . . .
Yes, let's not go there . . .
Perhaps we should relapse into past roles . . .
play it safe . . .
play the parts as written . . .
Of course you remember how much fun we had? . . .
You could have been a consumer . . .

Screen Dump 460

Of the world's estimated 7,000 languages, one dies every two weeks.
          - K. David Harrison, Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages

You hawked the installation with misunderstanding . . .
a French press with a migraine . . .
while your cross country junkets cameoed on Facebook . . .
intriguing tongues . . . trying to fit into the holes
dug into the script by a misdirected director

whose profile you later learned had been lifted
from a table of contents . . .
Pasts spilled out . . . time borrowed . . .
You began dropping clues with the insistence of a night out . . .

This happened, yes? . . . and continues . . .

After the alphabet, abutments were tuned to a minor key . . .
Roundabouts tried to round you up
but you loaded your brush with paint and insignificance . . .
You were told it had all been written down . . .
every last nuance . . . every misappropriation . . .
every identity theft . . . circling like a flock of kites . . .
The sketches you made in a ledger went undiscovered for over 150 years . . .
Undisclosed players hung out at a neglected ball diamond . . .
falling into the wrong chapter . . . losing face . . .

Marcin Szpak

From the Docudrama: Can't Blame Them, Can You?

(reposted from Tuesday, April 30, 2013)

I have no idea what you're talking about.
No idea what the reader is reading.
I don't understand.
I should be able to understand.
I don't like it.

I ordered the special, and expected enough for a takeaway.
It wasn't easy ordering in the middle of this chaos.
The wait staff can't hear us.
They can't hear what we're ordering.
Everyone seems to think that's OK.
It's not OK.

Grow up! Life is not a takeaway!

But I love to start the day with a takeaway!

Someone just texted me: take your time.

Yeah, OK. I'm always on the clock. We're always on the clock.
Is there an innocent bystander who could take the hit?
Doubtful.

Everyone's trying to hide
not necessarily to shirk their duty (isn't that a cool word?)
but maybe because some feel untrained and humbled.

(A statue of a police officer appears.)

Now what?

You're becoming curmudgeonly.

I'm becoming curmudgeonly? Is that a Maslowian stage?

Yes, the cardboard people on stage are paintballing the audience.

On top of that many are being stepfathered in.
Everyone is Facebooking like crazy.

And that surprises you?

From Alix Pearlstein's Moves in the Field

Screen Dump 294

(reposted from Tuesday, May 31, 2016)

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

In April's Chronogram:

Woman XXXIX

She says she wants to ride
and pulls up on her Harley.
I roll my Schwinn
back into the garage.

Screen Dump 459

You wake to a confused alphabet and into a diorama
with a cup of coffee following those who had stepped out . . .
and vanished . . .
The day sunshines snowbanks into hiding . . .
Today's lecture on the Gerty episode in Ulysses
held most but you found it formulaic . . .
old guys getting off at the sight of young skin . . .
There was a moment a bit ago when you had almost
thought it through . . . or thought you could think it through . . .
but that passed with Kindle's eInk . . . backlit and all . . .
You look at yourself . . . and at the trees
cavorting . . . preparing to give it another go . . .
the clockwork gearing loud and exciting . . .
Isn't it something how we grab ourselves and GPS our location . . .
following directions into the next scene . . .
which may or may not play out as hoped . . .
but so what? . . . In some strange way it's all good, yes? . . .
lowering yourself into the cockpit . . . words belted in . . .
another boldfaced expedition with you celebrating
the flash nonfiction of Li Po
in the mountains on a summer day . . .
You share it . . . then google the follow-up
which comes in at just under three minutes . . .
How to explain the pencil portrait in the corner . . .
the resemblance to Facebook sketched in someone else's hand? . . .
You continue with one hundred and eleven -
Maggie Nelson's, The Latest Winter, . . .
the whole thing coming back to your draft
and how even before the bell ended Round 12 you had managed
to skip the three chapters assigned for extra credit . . .

Screen Dump 458

Hired hands hand in school colors . . . in the nick of
the full shortage . . . if you know what I mean . . .
Incidentals brim the showroom . . . vet orphanhood . . .
The newly-hatched are cumbersome, yes? . . .
but then you like the length of autofictions
fabricating homeland depositions . . .
some remotely . . . with strings attached . . .
What did you mean by that anyway? . . .
Summer showers continue to be inducted
into a Hall of Fame of sorts . . .
the lawn . . . awaits the morning's drill . . .
Aceing the final, you are relieved of motion sickness . . .
remembering the era when slide rules became the go-to
for theme parks . . . every week strolling
amid stopgappers . . . bobbysoxers
packing incidentals on their way home . . .
anguishing over choices made . . . crow's feet plummeting . . .

Liliana Karadjova

Making All the World's Wrongs Right

The middle of the night blisters
with a phone call from the one left behind
whose head is a bobber
on a trout stream in the Adirondacks
while another fills out a health proxy
for police officers sporting body cams now that
hell to pay has checked in . . .
Luka still lives on the second floor, yes? . . .
thinking about the half-filled cup of coffee
at Tom's Diner . . . where a woman
with an umbrella studies her reflection
in the window in the bronze moments
of morning . . . before the rain . . .
K. H. Brandenburg tweaks an algorithm
for compressing audio files to birth MP3s
using Suzanne Vega's a cappella
of Tom's Diner . . . You return to the paper . . .
and to the paperless world
of the Ringling Brothers chatting up
the rhino poacher
who was stomped to death by an elephant
then eaten by a pride . . .  Karma? . . .
It's all about NPR's Tiny Desk Concert . . .
with Nichiren Buddhist Suzanne's Luka . . .

Just don't ask me what it was . . .

followed by . . . the sounds you can get
out of a guitar when you know how
to touch it properly . . .
The older . . . time-warped . . . blows curfew
color-coding unicorns
in the Land of the Discontinued:
He was 12 minutes late . . .
but the Great Train Robbery
had glued us to our seats in the Hippodrome
where our formers
saw Erik Weisz aka Harry Houdini
escape the Chinese Water Torture Cell . . .
He never got back to Bess . . .
She checks herself out of detox
chugging rubbing alcohol and hand sanitizer
and into an ICU where a voice says
You're not going anywhere . . .
but to a psych ward
and a 28-day program . . .
and the Monkey rides shotgun
through late-night streets
with James Corden's Carpool Karaoke
covering Zero 7's Destiny . . .

Soon I know I'll be back with you . . .

She flips through the paper
to William Holden's drunk stumble . . .
closing the book on one of the biggest
box office draws of the '50s and '60s . . .
his strange chemistry with delusional
Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond
in Sunset Boulevard . . . shuttled around town
by Stroheim's Max in a monster
of a town car with leopard-skin seats
and open chauffeur's compartment . . .
Little wonder the bookmaker
around the corner with the black Tesla in front
is encrypted . . .  and time-capsuled
after Grand Rounds
with a drug cocktail touted to make
all the world's wrongs right . . .
lip-syncing Childish Gambino's This is America . . .

Suzanne Vega

Screen Dump 457

Your wake-up call went south
bubble gum breathalyzer
Did it lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight? . . .
back to sleep
with news anchors of pileups on the Interstate
following the dotted line . . . again . . . and again . . .
picking up pieces of spam
interspersed with recipes
and promises of misappropriations
and guest appearances
on late-late-late-night talk shows . . .
The House of Crazy is open for business . . .
speeding along . . .
with feigned nonchalance . . .
but you knew that, yes? . . .
as the Queen of Redaction . . . a bowl of protein . . .
can't get enough! . . .
Photo albums bloat . . .
the way it was . . .
the way they were . . .
the way we were . . .
overdrawn bank accounts and selfies . . .
pockets stuffed with aftermaths . . .
they were game for anteing-up
the pot speaking a dead language . . .
Pity there wasn't an unfinished symphony
for the sawtooth ensemble to finish . . .
and now your phone is dead . . .
and you're sweating indictment for buying a burger
to get your kid into an ivy league school
and you're ready to accept submissions for your 24-hour meltdown . . .
Subsequent tête-à-têtes to air on Netflix . . .

Krzysztof-Wyzynski

Sometimes After the Alphabet

(reposted from Saturday, April 9, 2011)

Sometimes after the alphabet I would rewrite the script.
Sometimes after being thrown under the bus I would lip-sync.
Sometimes after being taken to the cleaners
I would text a random phone number.
Sometimes after preparing a meal I would eat out.
Sometimes I would wait for the light to change.
Other times I would follow the yellow brick road.
Sometimes I would sit on the bench for the entire third quarter
shouting out differences between evergreen
and non-evergreen growth patterns.
It’s all in the ring tones, I was told by an impartial opportunist
the draperies of her gestures
immobilizing me momentarily with blueness
after which I would make my way
through the throng of extras
flown in as expert witnesses
to engage an unemployed harpist caught unaware.
I’d heard of the tampering, of course, the tintinnabulation
of shutters and shudderers
but thought it best to continue with rehab
which had left me with a facial tic
and a strange indifference to Netflix
that I seemed not to care much about.
Sometimes after letting my fingers do the walking
I would check for lifting -
areas that had been damp when the first coat was applied
areas that on other pages in others books
would have been overrun with brown baggers
on lunch break feeding pigeons from forest green park benches.
This is not rocket science; it is someone’s bailiwick,
a smattering of unknowns reminded me
with the effortlessness of a man at the end of his rope
tossing his iPhone into a river
watching it sink slowly out of sight
sans disclaimer, sans influence, sans alternative.
Sometimes after channel surfing
I would dream of a life filled with recipes.
Sometimes I would dream of a life filled with blank pages
the unspoken rush that spreads from head to toe
upon being unfriended on Facebook.

Screen Dump 456

And I need you more than want you,
And I want you for all time.
          - Wichita Lineman (1968)

Indeed . . . the blurbiness of blurbs:
I write you . . . you write me . . .
bundling software for coders
as the night twinkles with bug juice in trash cans
lined with garbage bags . . .
I am become . . . a lineman for the county
splicing telephone lines . . .
as an aperitif . . . an insinuation . . .
the enthrallment of the table read
with you costumed
for yet another audition
the runner-up benched on fouls . . .
This will be a night to remember
a Titanic-ramming-iceberg night to remember
and you're buying into a stairway to heaven
to the magical realism
of a room filled with mirrors . . .
gorging yourself on ample food
at the wolf's table
the-wolf-with-groping-paws-table
before engaging the matrix
of permutations . . . and combinations . . .
the morning's ride back to the future
as time clocks Round Three . . .
and the gappiness of cubicles
mimics The Shining's snowy maze
while Freud and Jung
arm wrestle for your backstory . . .
the doubtful guest insisting she is Anna Freud
at the free-throw line
during the madness of March
which some documentarian chortled ain't much . . .
Daily we review takeaways   . . .
the guns and roses . . . and guns . . . and . . .
the bowed heads of aftermaths
squeezing through metal detectors
into three-ring circuses of misdirection:
you can't go home again! . . .

Mario Sorrenti

The Generous Logic of Friendship

(reposted from Tuesday, July 12, 2011)

Little pieces of us fall away
as we move along
through the same doors
down the same hallways
into the same rooms
sitting in the same chairs
at the same tables
using the same utensils
enjoying the same meals
the same bottles of wine.
Some across bodies of water
to float to distant shores
others through tunnels
still others into wood.
Coming and going
appearing
disappearing.
Nothing demanded.
The held hand slowly slipping away
until years later
sitting on the back porch
on a warm early summer evening
we reach for our glass
and find a piece
innocently clinging to our open palm.

Egon Schiele

Screen Dump 455

But then you find that the sensation diminishes
with repetition . . . Proust's disappointment
with his second and third swallow of tea . . .
the banality of it all . . . a constant . . .
Memorializing the parties of the unlined and bushy
slipping tongues nonchalantly
as if the clock had indeed been stopped . . .
No need to calculate the obliqueness now . . .
wait for the commercial break
when you can stretch and raid the fridge
and adjust the cushions
out of earshot of the contrarians at the gate . . .
An unstrung marionette finds words
in the redacted script . . . the basement trashed
by cleaners sent in to do the white thing . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek

Screen Dump 454

The late-winter cookout in the backyard
with everything growing silent
riding the elevator into the snow-filled basement
categorizing Kondo's declutter:
clothes, books, papers, komono, mementos
sparking photographic memories
of late-night talk shows
the predation . . . and willingness
to report that it was a joke . . . it was plastic . . .
keep your hands raised . . .
It becomes second-nature . . .
icing on the endgame . . .
the snow without surcease
as you sweep flakes into the palm of your left hand
a shopping cart out of control in a parking lot . . .
You are sprung to joy on the treadmill at the gym
while on the wall TVs
feature muted images of raised hands . . .
The color-coding continues despite warnings
that elevated bowls may cause bloat . . .
You tend to take things in stride . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek

Screen Dump 453

Armchair vacancies rant the airspace . . .
retire their uniforms in the middle of the game
and leave . . . to dissolve . . .
in the current . . .
The facsimile life . . . the well-oiled facsimile life . . .
aborts the highway . . .
curtailing alternatives with bipolarity
for archivists on coffee break . . .
How did you know the dancer
was about to attempt a villanelle? . . .
Bystanders capture moments . . .
before and after . . . after and before . . .
and again . . . but remain glued to the well-trodden . . .
And you? . . .

Hannes Caspar

Screen Dump 452

Calling your lost dog . . . who isn't lost
as if you need to tell someone
that something strange is about to happen . . .
a stylishly ill-advised moment
walking through the neighborhood
calling your lost dog . . . who isn't lost . . .
The incompleteness hits you on the ride home
and you fashion descenders
where mistakes have real consequences . . .
400 forgeries is nothing to poo-poo . . .
Simplification made simple, yes? . . .
as in the final scene where
the morning's cereal box
speaks to Scorsese's rat crawling
out the door . . .
This day like a few others lately feels rigged . . .
and grocery shopping won't be enough
to fend off the players - extras? - queuing up
at the entrance to your exit . . .
The jigsaw puzzle of attraction
with pieces scattered throughout your dreamscape
prompts you to play the mask
with a rush as diagrammed . . . at eye level . . .

Hannes Caspar

Screen Dump 451

An ultrasound tech . . . presents with pomegranates
small talks the front page
leaning in . . . as if quarterbacking . . .
Moments bespeak moments . . .
The reconfiguration of camera angles . . .
speechless at an open mic . . .
the ride home a hacked password . . .
Why now the interruption? . . .
Friends of friends arrive with leeks
count the take of the toll . . .
A scuffle in the meat department is captured on 36 iPhones . . .
Bigger . . . and BIGGER protein . . .
Is a life lived in faux fur a life lived? . . .
Another interruption . . .
You retreat to a labyrinth of overheard words . . .
grammatically indifferent words . . .
words in yellow vests . . . SANCTUARY . . .
Your impatience with the inanimate
grows with the stick-built . . .
the accountability of staking seedless tomatoes
as artifacts for the impossible . . .
Are the wine legs as they should be? . . .
You know the drill . . . when will you decide? . . .
Self-starters are bused to a starting line
confused by lifestyle changes
and made to consider a cache of meds
with no guarantee . . .
The comedy of monotony informs your late nights . . .
There was a time . . . not that long ago . . .
Take this down . . . breathe in . . . hold . . .
breathe out . . . Here's another . . . breathe in . . .

Ellen von Unwerth

Screen Dump 450

Waiting for . . . then waiting again . . .
Recruiting sandmen for graphical interfaces with sans serifs
brought back as uncommoners . . .
Imagine the confusion . . . the scale sliding
all over the slippery slope of mastery
operationalized as blips in a sea of screens . . .
monochromatic life savers
wrapped in tinfoil . . .
The scene opens with paint-by-number distractions . . .
Odysseyites clamor steamer trunks
when last calls led to back rooms where
opportunists drifted in and out of snowcastles
pocketing nonchalance for iPhone moments
saved to the cloud . . .
gaming tables alive with soup(er) bowls
for aficionados awaiting pat-downs . . .
the halftime show drawn and quartered amid controversy . . .

Screen Dump 449

The physiological component is a tired genre . . .
          - Anon

After which variations on themes . . . enter the frame
goop fogging the brain . . . neural networks and all that . . .
irrespective of how much
you practiced impossibilities
which took time
away from being held upside down until you got your balance . . .
Mosaic faces urge you to monochrome your life
to recommit to sobriety . . . hedge your bets
while odysseyites board short stories
with subtitled cigarettes
inviting you to re-up . . .
Miscounts abound . . .
Most if not all seek this, yes? . . .
Yet somehow, somewhere, there are average nuclear families
living in average nuclear waste dumps
trumped-up with average nuclear happiness . . .
Blond best friends are trying to make a go of it . . .
convinced they are destined to meet
the most famous person alive . . .

Jarek Kubicki

Today

(reposted from Sunday, April 5, 2015)

The world . . . calls to you like the wild geese, . . .
          - Mary Oliver (1935-2019)

to celebrate
I went . . . to the woods . . .
some snow still
the creek's gurgle
the trees
and then above . . . wild geese
return . . .
harsh and exciting . . .

Mary Oliver

Screen Dump 448

It seems foolish to think about ins and outs . . .
the cantomime trying to show how opacity descends upon us
and we skip the freebies
the duplicitous star-struck lovers
their lapse among leap-froggers . . .
fascination shortlisted . . .
You have set your sights on leaving
everything out . . . regretting the insertion . . . again? . . .
the rearrangement some would call louche . . .
You worry fastidiousness will undo you
especially now with your backpack gaping . . .
utensils giggling their inexactitude . . .
imposing drama on the rescheduled reshoot
awaiting revisions . . .
So many continue to be damaged with the dawn . . .
the world as Hawking predicted
becoming uninhabitable . . .
while uncharitables plot the canvas and push paint
to escape the tiresome conventions dull patter sour confessions
moved by boredom from the fringe to critical spotlight . . .
words reigniting mental gymnastics
meriting a trip to the mall
handicapping cluster flies snowboarding dry powder . . .

Colette (2018)

Screen Dump 447

Meanwhile the unruffledness of days splattered with snow . . .
A trio of clowns . . . random in tandem . . .
fresh from a nightmare . . . hand out free passes . . .
to open mics . . . now closed . . .
A time for revision . . . and repetition . . . looms . . .
The unwelcomed clone of your selfie is on hold . . .
choking back backstories of incidentals
to bring offcolor to passersby
exiting kiosks on the unnamed streets
of someone's hometown . . .
You search for links to direct you through the avalanche
of late-night palm readings
by recent converts to mime . . .
Pasta will be passed around without remorse . . .
without malice aforethought . . .
with trial balloons launched without beta testing . . .
It's OK to be remaindered, he/she said, now that the everyday
is signed sealed and delivered without return receipt requested . . .

Lydia Roberts