Screen Dump 569

You nudge the narrative into the uncharted waters

of a world in which even the least consequential seems precious . . .

Why the homing in on the narrow corridor of sleep? . . .

Have you documented every prompt that makes you smile? . . .

Timing is everything . . .

And what about the coffee shop on the corner

that continues to email you BOGOs

which are fiendishly autodeleted? . . .

You're not sure why . . .

and you're not sure about the address

which keeps changing . . . along with the artisanal blends

seeping into this poem . . .

It's all here . . . in the reworked script . . .

following a plan where a plan seems to fit

or making it up as you go . . . again

capturing overheard music . . . the same tonic and dominant

of loneliness and nostalgia . . .

traipsing through a wetland drenched in blue . . .

the same blue from the Book of Blue . . .

Your foodie friend blabs that reheating and plating carry-outs

feels almost as if you've made it yourself . . .

One can only suppose . . .

And fewer options reduce the tyranny of choice . . .

the shorter leash of the disembodied eye shadowing your search

for the solution to today's Puzzle-Me-This . . .

It's all good, yes? . . .

Irma Haslberger

All the Lots With Wall Power Sold

(reposted from Friday, July 8, 2011)

A rickety tom looks up at the returning geese
from his curl on the porch. Blackbirds pick
at the front lawn. A glider creaks. Etudes flow
from an open window. Two cars get hosed.
The shutter speed quickens, the shelf life
logged with cereal boxes, coffee grounds.
But the pictures fade, leaving us with ticket stubs
and appetites. Witness the laundry
with its plausible conclusion. I remember
when the machines were installed and how
we laughed at the delivery-man-cum-circus-clown
who arrived with twenty other twenty-somethings
in a dinky car straight from the Sullivan show.
And to think it was time to reshuffle the cards.
Driving away with the two of them sitting
on the back deck surrounded by honey bees
buzzing the refrain, But I'm not doing anything!
And the bridge came tumbling down.
Hula Hoops like camshafts under street lights.
We carried salt shakers for pilfered tomatoes.
A cherry bomb exploded near a stand-in's ear.
I caught hell from two old biddies who ran a still
out of their greenhouse. Was it you who organized
the weekly neighborhood quilting bees?
Of course, there were clarinet lessons
and the drop-off disrupting the watching of
Of Mice and Men with Malkovich and Sinise
riding off into the sunset on the waves at Provincetown.
Pizza vendors, waiting to board a Whale Watch,
sitting on the curb, people-watching. Is a chapter
a week do-able at sixty-seven words a minute?
There never seemed to be enough paper
and important messages were always
being whited-out. Fortunately, all the lots
with wall power sold. We found ourselves
in the boss's office with seven sets of twins
rehearsing a Doublemint commercial.
Once gainfully employed as a retractor,
he disappeared and hasn't resurfaced.
The pond got murky. It's been that way for months
despite the carnival atmosphere. Next time
I'll return the typewriter carriage myself.

Gary Sinise and John Malkovich in Of Mice and Men, 1981

Screen Dump 568

[audio]

Since when the marginalization . . . rooftop days

midtown with odysseyites collecting wrong returns

only to be redirected to restart? . . .

Someone riding shotgun on the freeway . . .

You ask How many are trying to engage? . . .

How many are trying to escape? . . .

The next gambit . . . as if paraphrasing

or pulling together backstories . . .

randomly selecting a layover . . . ongoing . . .

in an effort to teach people how to support one another

and to be supported . . .

Armed with what against mass shootings? . . .

Pulling us along from nothing to nothing . . .

Do the young heed the words of the old? . . .

>>> Insert buzzer here <<<

You have a bunch of blank pages . . .

Unafraid to be lost

as if dismantling then reassembling the craft

to voyage out . . . perhaps beyond the script . . .

Irma Haselberger

Screen Dump 567

It's all about the inventiveness of angularity, yes? . . .

I know you agree . . .

You recently joined the ranks of the wide-eyes

bottlenecking drive-thrus at Dunkin'

with blue-penciled drafts

soon to-be-returned to students in the final throes of MFAs . . .

To think about building almost into a poem . . .

The days commiserate . . .

The cityscape welcomes . . .

Surely this will be memorialized in someone's journal . . .

You begin taking dictation in the back seat

with a mellow intransigence

that belies a joyful entanglement . . .

You know what I mean . . .

Again, the enigma of who, indicative of autofiction, confuses . . .

How to represent without sanitizing the story? . . .

As if odysseyites would suddenly agree to therapy

to tease out whose swollen ethics will set them free? . . .

Thumbing through the catalog at the exhibit

you stumble upon text that you are sure holds the key

to kiosks belching their goods . . .

their lines ultimately stretching out (a good thing)

after the monochromatic lifestyle shutdown

imposed upon us by aliens . . .

You have always been one to seek growth

always ready for a new take on tradition . . . knowing full well

that reading a poem will seem like rewriting your life

not unlike playing with materials . . . pushing paint . . .

making habitual gestures to get to the surprise gesture . . .

And this so-called anti-self awareness trend? . . .

The obscurantism unintentional

though some - many? - would disagree . . .