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Recall the chef you went to high school with

deboning your salmon steak

while in an antechamber

a one-nighter riffed on a Fender? . . .

You wanted so much for it to be . . .
The deck is stacked but you know that . . .

Veganism? . . . OK, veganism . . .

There's loneliness in acceptance, yes? . . .

The time your pickup broke down

leaving you stranded in nowhereland

only to be dropped off at a subway stop

staring at the third rail

as if onlookers refused the magic

of your harmless costume . . .

And later at the bus stop

where rehearsals got out of hand

and the day became a graphic novel

in a strange tongue . . .

You knew this but continued your renderings

rubbing your hands together between your legs as if . . .

As if, what? . . . As if the director would call a reshoot? . . .

Take a moment to close read your journal

then return to the diorama of your neighborhood . . .

Forget inevitability . . .

Jan Scholz

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You're taking a line for a walk

to capture the cherry blossoms along the River Styx . . .

It's a day in someone's life, yes? . . .

The someone who was promised this but given that . . .

How unlikely . . .

Then the excitement of the roles you took on

after the barman's Last Call

bloating your Little Black Book

with fingerprints from your tweens . . .

You were dusted . . . and sent home . . .

Your Hokas make the unseen seen

with canned images from the produce section

of the neighborhood Hannaford . . .

Plans to repair the fence

trampled by wolves in sheep’s clothing

en route to grandma's

await the results of COVID testing . . .

The director of Netflix's Ripley

refuses to believe it . . . or not . . .

There once was a time . . . you suppose . . .

 

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You've become enamored of the invisible,

the mystery of entanglements . . .  

It's not so much the unknown,

it's the excitement

of being seduced by the moment,

the feeling of engagement, a shared journey . . .

The sloop of your dreams, drifting . . .

This performative feeling about writing . . .

that it's not set in stone . . .

that it's not closed down, not done . . . never done . . .

is good! . . .

You wake to an openness . . .

a blank page, an empty canvas . . .

And, no, it's not too late

to resume the close reading of your autofiction . . .

to experience deconstruction . . .

A bookstore materializes long enough

for you to buy your book, which isn't for sale . . .

Someone chimes in with sequencing is arbitrary . . .

Where does that fit in? . . .

Nothing wrong with being inquisitive . . .

Better than being aggressive or defensive, yes? . . .

The slippery slope of misinterpretation? . . .

of misunderstanding? . . .

The time left is now . . .

your experimental film . . . infinitely looped . . .

The Turin Horse (2011)

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A  Polaroid of young people at a beach

and the tale of the white Donald Duck tank suit

dripping with the full catastrophe begins . . .

A return to the days of then

soundtracked by 45s

the carefree exchange of goods and services

Jerry's Long Strange Trip . . .

high heels clicking on a 4 AM sidewalk

following an n of 2 or 3 or 4 . . .

all legs and arms and hair and words

streams flooded with binge

when . . . fanfare, please . . . a bread truck

rolls onto the scene

with Henry Miller at the wheel

Can I give you a lift? . . .

so you climb on

for yet another ride

costumes aplenty

experiences aplenty

memories aplenty . . .

Regrets? . . . A few . . . You too? . . .

La-di-da, la-di-da, la, la . . . à la Annie Hall . . .

years later . . . an ice storm cometh . . .

its outage an insult to the Age of Crocs . . .

The world teeters on the edge

of Hawking's uninhabitable . . .

yoked to this and that . . . this and that . . .

and your hand . . . their hand . . . a full house . . .

Antonio Palmerini

30 days . . . 30 poets . . . 30 poems . . .

Rensselaerville Library's Eighth Annual Poem-A-Day Project
celebrates National Poetry Month
with a new poem by a local poet each day for April’s 30 days.
With this year’s entries, PAD will have showcased
240 poems by 136 poets.
Stop by PADYES for your daily poetry fix!