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