Screen Dump 702

A diorama shadows your blue-penciled autofiction . . .

The day wanders through snowflake-dotted buildings

leaning against one another

as if the whole world is about to entropy . . .

You enter a wormhole

parlaying archival footage

for an afterlife with benefits . . .

the deck stacked with thumbnail sketches

of odysseyites seduced by Sirens of Dissonance . . .

The eons avalanche . . .

there are so many you've lost track . . .

A downsized news anchor holed-up for days in her room

bangs out magic on an ancient ribbonless Remington

over and over and over . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 701

The instability that looms . . .

like arriving at insight through revision

so you keep rethinking the path

and it turns out to be illuminating

even when you feel on the brink

or fear going over the edge . . .

the stick-to-ittiveness . . .

Sorting through old photographs . . .

your past lives . . . your past choices . . .

the anything as everything . . .

regrets at the last station . . .

doubts . . . insinuations . . . 

ghosts recapping playthroughs

dance across rooftops . . .

How often have you been slammed with less

despite costume changes promising more? . . .

despite the correct passcode? . . .

I know you know this from past table reads . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 700

You're dicking around with comma splices

trying to flesh out the ambiguity of appositives

checking prices of navel oranges and fuel oil . . .

The books on the shelf in fracture mode

stare you down, threaten to open . . .

There's a diagrammable certainty to all this

but you're having trouble putting your finger on it . . .

It's just so intricate and deliberate . . .

like winter's grip . . .

Traffic at the tray feeders jams

dislodging with a bright palette

the ennui of second-growth trees . . .

This could be about me, you, or someone else . . .

This hodgepodge of injecting meaning into the day . . .

the value of your words plummeting

given the seeming insouciance of event parking . . .

The relapse is about to relapse

with its refusal to countenance

any change in policy governing rules of grammar . . .

No doubt we'll hear more about this . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 699

A dropdown menu of grayed-out options

is about to announce your seeming willingness

to engage theater as theater . . .

After all, it’s all theater, yes? . . .

Even the garnish on your takeout . . .

So how about a share plate of edibles

selected with care

by your favorite chef-de-cuisine-du-jour? . . .

enough to dampen the gratuitous hostility

of your joystick with the rag-dolled strangers

backstage urging hardtail fat bikes

down gravel paths with night moves

going meta . . . stretching like taffy

along the yellow brick road of imagination . . .

Everyone memorialized in the softcovers

cluttering your backroom

is a person of disinterest

kneejerking golden rings in fables

transcribing the blank pages of the novel

you inhabit . . . while you reach

for your autofiction trying to forget

what you saw, who you were,

fashioning orphaned marionettes to retreat

into the theme parks of your fragmented mind . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 698

Many were inexperienced . . . time and again

misinterpreting hand-holding as condescension

revisiting the cul-de-sac with the passcode

at the wheel of your nightmare . . .

So you would proceed . . . slowly . . .

encouraging them to ask questions . . . take notes . . .

The strangeness of the encounter . . . a given . . .

both of you stepping out of your comfort zones

as if shooting with a green screen . . .

And what about postproduction at the tea shop

with work-a-day costumes oozing hilarity in retrospect? . . .

Antonio Palmerini