Screen Dump 497

You're messing with the script
trying to dodge it
short-circuit the craziness . . . life out of balance
but the ruts are deep
and you keep sliding back in . . .
An instruction manual offers suggestions
but we'll have to wait for the next installment . . .
A lapse in the rain graying-out
the morning's options
fills your pockets with seeds . . .
Is it time to turn the soil? . . .
to add fertilizer? . . .
Last year was a bust . . . nothing . . .
Maybe this year, yes? . . .
As if elephants appear out of a nightmare . . .
downsized . . . Aren't we all . . . downsizing? . . .
Isn't everything downsizing? . . .
You decide to make matters worse by tagging the elephants
that have joined us to break bread
around an empty table . . .
You opt - quite heroically I should add -
to include boulevards in the lockdown . . .

Kate Moss

The Albany Poets, in the spirit of community, is encouraging local poets to post a video of themselves reading one of their poems. Here's mine:

One Could Do Worse Than Be A Dumper Of Screens

I dream myself a spotter of weight-bearing fantasies
of half-whispered promises laced with nonsense syllables
my dialogue a monologue of graphic comics . . .
I am on top of things . . . deluded . . .
imagining the world as mirror-image . . .
as far-fetched deadline . . . indifferent, colorless . . .
improprieties squeezing through the holes in my story . . .
paper cuts and hypotheticals
a collage of weak passwords
legacied for shadowers of REM sleep . . .
Counting to the tenth power . . . within which . . .
if that's what you want . . .
the whole truth . . . and nothing but . . .
tap dancing . . . whistling while I work . . .
taking the long way home . . .
My notebook fills with snow . . .
Four score and something . . . and something else . . .
Off-days the string quartet in my back pocket
is all but played out . . . in three-quarter time . . .
Odysseyites . . . mark the spot . . . steal second . . .
and more . . . transposing the theme of Lassie
chock-full of unclaimed funds . . .
sitting there . . . festering . . . in the laptop of jargon
with no one worth emailing
about the sinister rise . . . in temperature . . .
A pound of something . . .
Tragedians backed-up at the roundabout
conjure audience implants
with places to go . . . people to be . . .
reworking the boundaries of ancient Greek mythos
with aspiring telecommuters . . .
I brood Bacon's comment about the violence of paint . . .
the unbearable heaviness of isolation . . .
Is there no other way? . . .
Indeed, one could do worse than be a dumper of screens . . .

Screen Dump 496

So by half exist you mean what? . . .
The head boards have control of your head
and they're using it to illustrate
the ebb and flow of counterintelligence . . .
Someone intuitively selects a circle
to contain the argument which is making
its way along the rutted road
that runs alongside your dream house . . .
There's a run on everything I suppose
if you assume the unpopular stance
that there's no significant difference
at the .01 level . . . at any level
for that matter . . . but even then
hyperventilation cannot redeem
the world . . . and AI is out to lunch . . .
at least until 1:30 . . . Rewiring skin tags
begs fluctuation . . . wouldn't you agree? . . .

Anatoly Gladkov

Screen Dump 495

Humpty Dumptyites insist survival is predicated
on accepting disappointment . . .
Even health care workers are buying into it . . .
balding boldfaced burnt-out self-quarantined
in face mask and sandwich boards
pushing a fractal approach . . . while walking on
the frozen surface of a body of water . . .
billions and billions
on a tiny pale blue speck of dust . . .
wait to be loosed into the cosmic boondocks
of the late Cornell astrophysicist Carl Sagan
who shared the secrets of the Cosmos
with insomniacs while appearing
more than two dozen times
on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson . . .
Price gouging spikes . . .
for toilet paper, paper towels, hand sanitizers, hand wipes,
cleansers, detergent, disinfectant sprays . . .
Doomsayers wander empty supermarket aisles
plugging black holes with emptiness . . .
A conspiracy of cats contacts you . . .
Aquifers bloat watersheds . . . spark confusion . . .
Why does why invite seepage? . . . something unexpected . . .
Window-shopping for answers you encounter
an urgency with no recognizable context . . . and so it goes . . .

Humpty Dumpty circa 1873

Screen Dump 494

But then in the middle of the Alfredo you break it off
running tabs aerobically . . .
effortlessly . . . on one of your cardio days . . .
The morning coffee . . . altered
the plants sprayed
the cats fed . . . and watered . . .
It wasn't on the list, was it? . . . I mean
this offset color . . .
arranged I suppose in a rainbow of personals . . .
The language . . . inside and out . . .
suppositions . . . (with addenda) . . .
There's little here for watchers
if you discount them over there doing planks . . .
breaking through the fourth wall
with Cream of Wheat oversold, yes? . . .
elevating obscurity
at least in the red white blue states
somewhere here buried in the regs . . .
You alas as such . . . no, more, yes, more . . .
cultivating an avatar with rapidographic seizure . . .
the morning after . . . and then . . .

Wendy Bevan