Screen Dump 729

Blue-lined notebooks fat with FAQs sideswipe

with indifference . . .

You deconstruct backstreets

and hang out at a kiosk,
the one with BOGOs of pics

of your former selves -

some then . . . some now -
sorting through fragments

of what might have been . . .
the read-through pristine yet unconvincing
as if bell lappers knew all along

your retreat into the backdrop . . .

There will be additions which you will fail

to anticipate . . . gorging yourself on hasbeens . . .

captivating onlookers with pretense

your costume re-engaging the opening masterfully . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 728

Is this why you rise early, brimming with alterations? . . .

Little matter . . . no one will be duped . . .

Nothing incidental here in the foundry of stamped emotion . . .
You can examine it, dissect it, take it for a walk . . .
without recrimination . . . without regret . . .
leaving indelible - and very real - turnabouts
for those who feel nothing about feeling nothing . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 727

And you in the ungraspable somewhere

flopping down on a couch

grabbing the remote
channel-surfing
leaping intuitively to the ending you must have . . .
these mere players playing their parts
their table-reads off the grid
between the lines
improvisational

winging-it
flying by the seat of their pants
scenes colliding, mounting to confusion . . .
The moment to moment . . .
Drafting the incense of homecoming
as you follow the directions . . .
the rights and lefts
climb the stairs, review your notes
one last time before entering . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 726

Your younger self on a dirt bike pulls up to a light

and the cameras roll into the next decade with ins and outs

tumbling through the paper drifts of assignments . . .

That was when you repainted your room

with your altered ego

leaving a memory of special effects in a milk truck

before dawn's early light . . .

The cavalcade of costumes was well worth the tag team takedown

when eyes wide shut for unknown reasons

stepped in from another season of reruns . . .

The confusion addictive

but then we were all in the mix of Mother Jones . . .

the Dickinsonian obliquesness

conducive to auditioning for different roles . . .

a shoo-in for this and that . . . this and that . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 725

Your spectrum of entanglements

continues to tickle comings and goings

Roman numerals stacked

fleeing into an anxious canyon

of choral meanderings

memories flooding the stairwell

evoked by the tracks on your mixtape . . .

You're checking out playlists

trying to throw light on the passage of time . . .

fragmentary dreamscapes

draw you in . . .

You've been tagged for a workgroup . . .

the behind-the-scenes incidence of intimacy . . .

It happens, yes? . . .

The days into weeks into months into years . . .

grasping at fillers to avert the inevitable? . . .

Sitting there,  smiling,

your tongue unleashed from its moorings . . .

unctuous in its wake . . .

as if regression took the wheel from some roadie

when, at the last misstep, you decide

to stay a while . . .

Antonio Palmerini