Screen Dump 764

You were shrunk by a shrink in a pop-up

during a blow-out BOGO sale

words flying off shelves

into Dharma bowls

prepped by line cooks for enlightenment . . .

presentation is everything, yes? . . .

There was a time . . . I mean . . .

not sure what I mean . . .

without the script, perhaps? . . .

your one wild and precious life

walking Commercial Street

past Mary Oliver's ghost

sitting outside her oceanfront cottage

then on to the other end

Stanley Kunitz's tiered garden

snakes dangling head-down, entwined

in a brazen love-knot . . .

the tide lapping the Provincetown Inn

with memories of the Moors . . .

more than a bit raffish . . .

presided over by Scooter, the pet owl . . .

There is no other life . . .

Gary Snyder's homage

to log truck drivers:

In the high seat, before-dawn dark,

Polished hubs gleam

And the shiny diesel stack

warms and flutters

Up the Tyler Road grade

To the logging on Poorman creek.

Thirty miles of dust.

There is no other life . . . indeed . . .

This to be archived for odysseyites

in a reconfigured deconsecrated chapel

near Portofino, Italy . . .

Anja Niemi

Screen Dump 763

As if the movie was afraid . . .

so in the first episode

this face . . . and you're thinking

take this face through the whole movie

but nope, you're tossed into a dark room

writing over your writing

because you can't see . . .

words like dictation

the rain in Spain gives you wet brain . . .

Now you're worrying about remembering

to google unclogging a drain . . .

It's like that

the obliqueness

trying to fit it all into some designated,

predetermined framework . . .

The delusion of illusion, yes? . . .

and you're riffing on the responsibility

of the artist not to look away . . .

to render what to you is real . . .

But it's late, really late

for these visitors . . . these night stalkers

too late to be assailed

by the critic at the gate . . .

Too many weary heads

dislocating too many weary shoulders . . .

Carmen Watkins

Screen Dump 762

Lion-obsessed Venetian iconographies

the size of Montana

crowd your nightscapes . . .

animals hiding in twisted sheets

swipe smartphones . . .

walleyed tourists board water-buses

to carry them to paintings

displayed salon-style from floor to ceiling . . .

The neighborhood Carl Jung

at the wheel of a Ferrari

cruises you on your bimonthly talking cure

collecting your unconscious

to pry open the shyness

that smacks you back

to the darkness of OCD . . .

You enjoy these costumey affairs

with their pretend puddings

and freedom from counting syllables . . .

It's all theater, yes? . . . well, maybe not

but we won't know until the credits scroll

and critics email their reviews

to odysseyites waiting to board . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek