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You're in the middle of a sandwich

when you're asked about roadside attractions

that favor alternate Thursday harbingers

of canceled game shows . . .

This is a place-holder not unlike

the surf's mellifluousness . . .

Time After Time vibrates past

summer people dismantling a paradox 

for no apparent reason . . .

Shifting down would doubtless trigger enticement . . .

Do you really want to rethink

the unworkable curves in the road

awed by odysseyites inhabiting anorexic kitchens? . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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Your life skirts the edge of a backstory

looking out from the outside

with information overload ready to pounce . . .

How quaint, yes, this throwback

to earlier, safer times . . . cushioned

with Craigslist posts and ethical underpins . . .

Sitting on your hands will be zoomed

but think of the day's other options . . .

When will it stream on Netflix? . . .

You’re about to shift into overdrive

which is nothing compared to the day's triggers

awaiting mispronunciation in the condiment aisle . . .

I saw you there in all your paginations

colorful and wonderful and anticipatory . . .

as if your flight had been rerouted

in the last quarter of the playoffs . . .

Antonio Palmerini

away from the noise

I am the shape of water

with goslings in tow

Lake Myosotis

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You wonder the entanglement of a cafe

in a city you don't know

the quiet desperation of regulars

sidetracked and distracted

the modal elements

as if confusion is a friend . . .

Your work, yes? . . . What is it all about? . . .

Words arranging themselves

rearranging themselves

making public your proxy . . . like you're all of it

before and after . . . getting lost

in your head . . . and this is good . . .

quickening the strained look . . . 

the byplay on the path to elsewhere . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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The closeness . . . misinterpreted . . .

misunderstood . . .

enraptured . . . by angularities . . .

by semblance . . . by excitement . . .

Proportionality as part of it, yes? . . .

the retreat to the periphery

of your entanglement? . . .

The invisibility inevitable . . .

Nothing spectacular

save for the acknowledgement of distance . . .

The moment-to-moment nomenclature of glances

with the silence of a rewrite . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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Rehearsing the penultimate

with a strange tongue

for those garden languagers

that can make it here there anywhere . . .

The alternatives crumble

to no-one's surprise . . .

understanding someone's gameplan

includes time-outs

for wrinkled foreheads . . .

Conjuring the dimmest memories

may work for a bit

but the inevitability of intimacy

as hoped for

will doubtless remain locked in memory . . .

False positives, yes? . . .

borrowing lines from the afterlife . . .

as if there is one

pissing and moaning

about yet another attack

on obscurantism . . .

the handcar leaving the station

notes and revisions

that would have made a difference

taking to the air

packing the house

with unknowns and toys for the endgame . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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You're copying pages from the book

you found creased in the sand

but nothing else . . . the emptiness

straddles the drama . . . with you

in over your head . . . a good thing

notes to yourself to close read . . .

the deconstruction . . . an element

to be hoisted onto the mast

with language for the solo voyage . . .

You hammered Moby Dick along

with your other prestidigitations . . .

a Siren entrancing odysseyites in full . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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Moving through characters

voicing their words

not unlike climbing into Instagram

playing the parts

form and function

forgetting the toxicity

of the overblown

with its confinement . . .

Out and about

with this year's seedlings

before the storm at least

before the avalanche at least . . .

Why the nonchalance? . . .

Running the changes as a distraction

fascinated by the fingering

the once and future

something or other . . .

Little matter what . . .

The crowded nursery with cart wielders

eyes and such

speed reading the tabs

imagine close reading . . .

What a trip! . . .

But what about next year? . . .

The ongoing transformation

is the trip you’ve wanted to take . . .

The trip you've been waiting for . . .

Paolo Roversi

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You plant an alphabet in your sleep

and wake to appropriation

as if the characters had been hacked

while counting guests . . .

The math checks out

but the logic to your dismay is playing dead . . .

Far too many have suffered comeuppance

with AI-generated scripts . . .

Don't worry, when the call is made

you'll have a good excuse . . .

The synchronicity is one way to go

but to insist on simple stories

shreds the complexity of language . . .

Misunderstanding's around the corner

and with everything everywhere

if you can imagine that . . .

A cold plunge into translation

would be worth it in bargaining chips

but why? . . . Why the amplitude

of pages in the book on your nightstand? . . .

I thought you were beyond that . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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The lions you've been wondering about

are crossing the River Styx

on a raft with Huck and Jim . . .

Is your man white . . . or black? . . .

Simon and Garfunkle have walked off the set

looking for America

in a time of innocence . . .

Kathy boards a Greyhound 

in Pittburgh

after Jack Gilbert's

Pittsburgh and happiness high up

each time almost remembering something

maybe important that got lost . . .

But where is Kathy now? . . .

Is Kathy still reading her magazine on the bus

in Simon and Garfunkle's America? . . .

And is she with Mrs. Robinson? . . .

And where is Joe DiMaggio? . . .

Inquiring minds want to know . . .

The dealer clears her hands

for the eye in the sky . . .

The streets are blocked off for a 5K

heading into Memorial Day

a miniscule inconvenience by comparison

surely not Bruce Cockburn's lions

on SNL circa 1980

coming through the rye

with Salinger's appropriation

of Robert Burns . . . but what the heck

it fits . . . doesn't it? . . . Holden, yes! . . .

indeed, it was a time of confidences . . .

Bruce Cockburn (SNL May 10, 1980)

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Out of earshot, yes? . . .

Meanwhile the collective belch of the day

bridges gaps in memory

deconstructed at all hours

or odd hours . . . whatever works . . .

The difference is in the fabric

the tongue-and-groove conversations

among grocery shoppers

tagged for manager specials by AI . . .

The days unfold the same . . .

quite close to the arithmetic

of a calliope . . .

Nothing can be done

but no matter . . .

the comings and goings

covering distance with more distance

protective of what the ears cannot hear . . .

Pull up the night train

with cartilage still pliable

and willing to take a stab

at identifying the flickering scent

emanating from elsewhere . . .

It's the frugalitarianism crapping out . . .

Paolo Roversi

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This will have to do for now . . .
There should be enough
especially the second movement
with its surprising reprieve . . .
There will be coffee of course
and days squandered

before confusion enters the room

and bolts the door . . .
Again this year the soil will be turned
hours set in motion against the dwindling light
yielding memories like meaty tidbits
picked at by gnarly-clawed
Rhode Island Reds, plotting elopement . . .

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There's the anvil again

and the rythmic strikes of the hammer

on the red-hot steel

re-shaping the drill point

while the road crew chills with smokes

next to their idling rig . . .

And the Rhode Island Reds

their strange, soft, drawly clucking

filling the air

milling about outside the coop

scratching for worms

with gnarled, yellow claws . . .

the clotheslines . . .

attached to the telephone pole

squeak in harmony

with a push mower

and with the bell in the cherry trees

shooing away Robins . . .

You're trying to connect the dots

hungry for meaning

now with age more interested in narrative

as the bell lap sounds

in the roll and stretch of a dream . . .

the same dream . . .

the same black and white dream . . .

fearing so many things

a terrible kind of proof

so as not to be crushed

by the stupid or the vacant or the void . . .

There's this scene in Bela Tarr's The Turin Horse

with a young woman sitting next to a stove

with its pot of boiling potatoes

looking out the window at the dust storm

imagining other worlds . . .

The Turin Horse (2011)

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The argument collapsed and you were left

sifting through the shape of water . . .

The can of spray paint

used to highlight the separate steps

was found and dusted . . .

with odysseyites analyzing the has-been . . .

A beautiful mind was awakened

to walk among and comment on

the plantings . . . a horticultural escapade

for those in the know . . .

Counting worked wonders

and in no time the path to the argument

was uncovered and made presentable

which seemed to have been part of the plan

from the get-go . . .

Paolo Roversi

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You're asking about the doors

and why they're opening and closing

and why Kafka's path - beginning middle end -

had to have been put down simultanously

as corroborated by footage

that didn't exist . . .

So a walk in the garden among the peerless

the moment you realize

the connections that the writer/director

had diligently worked out

in the late hours of their mind . . .

It's not so much the expansion

of thoughts as it is the extension . . .

the detritus of the day-to-day

with meanderers choosing happiness . . .

aloud no less so that others might appreciate

their impulsivity and the seedlings

scattering in time to the second movement

of the drama unfolding in your backstory

despite the missing pages . . .

Where to go next? . . .

But there's time . . . yes, there's time . . .

Paolo Roversi

At the Transfer Station

Rain sheets the windows of the black Dodge.

There’s a young guy in the passenger seat

and he’s giving you the thumbs up.

His grandfather is unloading the Dodge.

You're getting soaked, wrestling trash bags

out of your SUV, but you stop, put down the bags,

and give him the thumbs up.

From my Proust's New Eyes

Albertine Simonet is Marcel’s mistress . . .

Marcel is the narrator of Marcel Proust’s

seven-volume À la recherche du temps perdu . . .

In Search of Lost Time . . .

Marcel is Proust . . .

Marcel is obsessed with Albertine . . .

He wishes to possess her . . . to own her . . .

Albertine appears in three of the seven volumes . . .

Her name occurs 2,363 times . . . on 807 pages . . .

Albertine is first seen pushing her bicycle

on a beach . . . skirts billowing . . .

Marcel will return again and again to this image . . . 

Albertine is asleep in 19 percent of the novel . . .

Asleep, she becomes a plant . . .

her hair like crinkly black violets . . .

Proust uses plants as metaphors

for female sexual desire . . .

In The Albertine Workout the poet Anne Carson

notes that plants expose their genitalia . . .

Marcel observes that sometimes in her sleep

Albertine throws off her kimono and lies naked . . .

Hence, Proust’s fascination with sleep . . .

Fade to black . . .

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But more often it has to do with

insecurity or the desire to impress . . .

So they copied the painting

signed their name

and sold the painting . . .

Is this a problem? . . .

Hybridization opens a door . . .

The confluence of theory

and autobiography . . .

a no-brainer as you walk off

to look for America . . .

Would you care to elaborate

on the unique building blocks

of your interiority

all magically held together

with Elmer's Glue? . . .

But these trifles

will suck the living daylights

out of your fabrication

leaving you picking nits . . .

rearranging the colors on your palette

with ultramarine blue

in the twelve o'clock position . . .

Read the draft

as if it's the first time

to see if you've veered too far

off the yellow brick road . . .

If you want to remake a point

just go for it so to speak

in the moment

regardless that all hell

will break loose . . .

The normativity of stringing words

is choreographic . . . the listener

playing catch-up and enjoying it . . .

You were here . . . We were here . . .

just a moment ago . . . and now we're gone . . .

vaporized . . . poof! . . .

Anka Zhuravleva

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A voice warns not to sweat imprecision . . .

It's easy to drop names

gaslighting the insecure

into interpreting grocery lists

for identity thieves

posing as Alice . . . in Wonderland

sacking drivebys

doubletalking wordplay

cluttering walkups . . .

Just think makeshift or landlubber

and you'll be fine and dandy . . .

Numbering your thoughts

will doubtless serve the same purpose

until the Uber arrives

to take you to the neighborhood

medical pop-up for a quick look . . .

And what’s with the local chapter

of hand wringers? . . .

They seem exasperated . . . but why? . . .

Imagine everyone elsewhere . . .

What then? . . .

Overdubbing the verbal miasma

will open the floodgates

to a double header

where you'll be able to enjoy

the warning track

without hitting the wall . . .

Calling out for pizza

has again jammed the works

of this run-around-in-circles

kind of day . . .

Addenda have lost

their sense of purpose . . .

You are sliding off the edge

of the looking glass

while documenting rapid physical changes

transformative changes . . .

curiouser and curiouser . . .

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You're freighted with imaginary concerns

highlighting text for tomorrow's comealong . . .

Someone called in a lockdown . . .

Confrontational aesthetics is today’s special 

with teams of horses circling the wagons . . .

The stop-and-go is standing down . . .

You are stop-actioned by the congestion

at the roundabout and throw the dice

out the window . . . A voucher for a turnaround

has been duly noted . . . Now tell me again

what led you to this . . .

Antonio Palmerini